also read at Ao3 here
Chapter One
A deep black robe fluttered in the cold night air. Darker than the sky and devoid of stars, a man nearly no more than a silhouette gazed out over the late night lights of Fuyuki City from his mountain viewpoint.
This tall man had arrived conspicuously early to his meeting here on the cursed mountain, but seemed to have no particular purpose. He simply stared towards the river, painting a picture of a menacing overseer. His figure fashioned from ash and tar fit well in this burned, forsaken land.
A little girl with platinum hair watched this man from behind with her ruby eyes, not stepping forward or calling out to announce her arrival, despite not being particularly hidden. Her appearance was far more unsuited to this place, a snow-white existence jacketed in royal colors, at risk of being tarnished by the razed soil.
Her breath made clouds in the winter air, but only dark ash lay at her feet. The clean white of snow was nowhere to be seen.
“I see our little Master has no manners,” came a low voice from behind the disjointed pair. A stern, suited woman of a visage marked by a crisscrossing of old scars and fresh lashes stood with her arms crossed as well.
A scarlet glare confronted the newcomer. “I see that our… illustrious usurper is as unpleasant as ever.”
“Now, now,” warned the overseer, turning to the pair to reveal a face with a freezing smile and an unpleasant gaze borne by eyes that almost seemed to be jammed in his sockets, “This is no place for hostility, is it?” A wooden crucifix pendant swayed in front of his chest as he walked. “The sacred site that unites us together in this endeavor lies beneath our very feet! I daresay the Holy Maiden of Winter rolls over in her grave at the sight.”
This soured the girl’s face even more, but she held her tongue in practiced restraint.
“Ah, Artisan, keep your damn blaspheming mouth shut,” warned the scarred woman, lighting a cigarette. “You’re just the god-damned priest.”
Kay Artisan laughed a colder laugh than his icy smile, but with somewhat more mirth. "You know very well which god I serve, Miss Shirogane. Your grandfather appointed me overseer, while you… remind me what you’re doing here again? Hoping to unleash your failed ‘life’s work?’"
Meika Shirogane’s fist clenched, and it shook from the tension. She pointed at the priest angrily, attempting to formulate a response. “You bastard preacher, that’s my daughter you’re-”
The little girl cleared her throat and the tension. “-ahem...” She sighed, a little breath almost lost even in the mild winter wind, and spoke. “The Einzberns owe Syzygial Axis a great deal for their help since the Calamity. I respect the hard work of the heretic priests and the Shirogane family’s… magecraft.” For all its air of authority, the young girl’s voice hardly fared better against the wind. She turned away from the others and frowned over the city, her hands joined behind her back. “Though, it is funny to see a heretic of the Holy Church feign interest in my family’s goals. So funny I forgot to laugh…”
“It’s simply the best-case scenario for the Syzygial Axis. Any other victor would be a nuisance. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Shirogane?”
The scarred woman glared at the man, managing to meet eyes with his.... mismatched eyes, but then she slowly inhaled from the cigarette, and exhaled a faint cloud of smoke. She seemed to have calmed down, or at least decided not to argue this time.
Illyasviel turned back to face the gathering. “I… my family is not concerned with the details of Axis’ rituals,” she spoke somewhat warily. “And besides, I’m going to win this war.”
“How confident of you,” intoned the priest with another hint of ill humor, “I assume you’ve dealt with your… roadblocks.”
Illya glared, then straightened herself and grinned with confidence. “The unexpected trouble with the Servant has not changed anything.”
“Everything is in place, then? Things are well on my end.” Meika Shirogane reported, uninterested in the young Master’s boasts.
“Six out of seven, so close enough,” replied the overseer, pulling a folded paper from a pocket of his coat. He read it with a humorless smile. “The Einzbern maiden, of course,” he nodded towards Illyasviel here, “four from the Association, and… the daughter of Tohsaka.”
“The Tohsaka family…” the Einzbern child muttered quietly, and then fixed questioning eyes on the paper in the man’s hand. “Where exactly have you obtained this information? All the Servants haven’t been summoned yet.”
With unnecessary flourish, the man tucked the scrap of paper back into his coat. “While the official provisions granted to me as overseer are of little insight now, I still have contacts in the Association. Mages aren’t as good at covering their tracks as they tend to think. Besides, most simply came forward on their own. I suppose people will turn to any authority in such unfamiliar circumstances.”
Ms. Shirogane, who had watched the exchange with continuously narrowing eyes, took a final drag from her cigarette, then flicked it away and grabbed the man’s arm in the same motion. She inspected it with a far from gentle grip, but the man did not flinch. He smiled another humorless smile, tugged his hand away, and voluntarily displayed his other.
“As you can see, I have not had the good fortune to be chosen as a Master. I have nothing to say to the Grail, so it’s just as well.”
“Latecomer then,” the woman spat out the corner of her mouth, lighting another smoke.
“On the contrary, the first night is a perfect time for a new combatant.” Artisan grinned unpleasantly. “Or perhaps this is what you call ‘fashionably late’.”
Meika Shirogane stared at the heretic priest and then snapped her fingers. “Right, I’ve decided, I’m following you home to that unpleasant church.”
“Have it your way, illustrious representative of the Shirogane family. It would absolutely delight me to make you fashionably late to your grandfather’s meeting as well. Let’s make it a date, then. I’m flattered that you want to try my cooking.”
Illyasviel buried her forehead into her palm as Ms. Shirogane snarled and snapped her fingers again. “Right, I’ve decided, I’m going to kill this man,” she growled.
“Oho, even better! Though you’re tough out of luck with bullets, I’m afraid.”
“Just go home, you fucking madman. Mark my words, I’ll be five meters behind you.”
“Good luck with your invisible friend, Miss Einzbern,” Artisan called after Illya as Meika Shirogane practically pushed him down the mountainside.
Sighing deeply, Illya hopped down from the little boulder she had been standing atop, and turned to make her own way down the mountain.
She kicked some pebbles down the ruins of a staircase she was descending. Each one clattered as it tumbled down several steps, and stopped when it bounced off into the ash and sparse vegetation.
“You lied in that meeting. It’s best to avoid bending the truth to achieve your goals. To lie is to sin, after all.” A voice spoke from Illya’s side.
“I told you to stay at the castle!” Illya said, finally letting out this particular frustration.
“The servant imbecile’s only purpose is to wield that arm, isn’t it? I thought she was mere chattel, a piece of merchandise, but-”
“I told you, they are maids! Now, why are you here?”
“I am a proud knight, I heed only the words of God and my queen. I am hardly inclined to bow to a little girl, even if she may be a noble. In any case, I came along because I heard you were meeting a man of the faith.”
The unexpected trouble with the Servant. Infuriating.
“I have said it over and over, you will obey your Master! Don’t you respect the Command Seals?”
“I have agreed to aid your cause as a servant of Justice, but if you are to use wily tricks to invalidate my God-given free will, I will have no choice but to consider you an enemy. But enough of that, Einzbern, I wish to hear more about this fellow man of God.”
Trying not to hang her head, Illya hurried her pace away from the mountain. “You still will not call me Master, I see.”
“Acknowledging your title is the same as acquiescing to your tyrannical demands,” the Servant returned before continuing the subject. “This ‘overseer’ was the only one at that little gathering who did not lie. Just that is enough for me to respect him more than anyone else I have met in this era. He seemed to know I was there, and yet did not speak to me…”
“...”
When Illya did not display any interest in picking up the topic, her Servant engaged her with a question. “To begin with, what exactly is the meaning of this rank of ‘overseer’?”
“Perhaps if you listen to my directions, I’ll answer your questions.” Illya paused for a moment. She wondered what exactly the Shirogane woman could have lied about, and thought to find out later.
“Talking back to a knight is unbecoming of you. Even if I had not wished to meet this overseer, it is improper for a young noblewoman to be out unescorted so late. Let alone a little girl traipsing about a battlefield!”
Illya turned toward the source of the voice to respond, even though it was only empty air. “I’m not some defenseless child, Saber. Besides… my position is enough protection. I can tell there are no Servants anywhere on this side of the town at all. Most haven’t even been summoned yet.”
In answer to Illya’s serious gaze, the air began to glisten and congeal.
Shining bronze armor, in the style of the Greeks, but adorned with the cloth, chainmail, and heavy gauntlets of a medieval European knight. Flowing hair with vibrant red color. The polished golden hilt of a sword, forged into the shape of balanced scales - the icon of the Lady Justice. This same symbol was painted onto the breastplate, and embroidered onto every decorative piece of cloth.
The scales, indeed. An implement wielded by many deities of antiquity, the proof of their virtue in deciding what is Right… alongside the swords that proved their authority. Themis, Dike, Astraea... and in Rome Justitia, and the original in Egypt, Anubis who weighed the souls of the dead against Divine Order. And also, the sign of Libra… the only inanimate member of the Western Zodiac.
Might, right, a tempered blade, and a cold heart removed from human existence, removed from Life itself.
With a heavy heart, Illya sighed. It was as clear as day that it was a fitting emblem.
“Young Einzbern, I believe it would greatly behoove you to gain some modicum of self-awareness. You are far more important than anything that lies in your castle - as if there were anything but the ridiculous maids there anyway - and it is not I who is misled about your constitution. Regardless of any induced irregularities in your nerves, you are first and foremost a fragile child.”
Illya bit her lip in frustration. Despite how ridiculous her own Servant’s perception of her was,
she could not bring herself to argue, because her command was indeed more childish than calculated. Of course, she stood by it as strongly as ever.
Half-storming away, Illya continued down the path. “You will not speak with the overseer, or Shirogane either. I will not allow it. And once this war begins in earnest, you shall accompany me at every turn. There, you will serve as my knight. Your pursuit of justice won’t permit another to obtain the Grail, after all.”
“Oh, rest assured, I will obtain the Grail for you. After all, the path of the Einzberns has not strayed from God.”
“Yes, you will,” Illyasviel replied as her servant faded back into the cold night air. Silent and invisible, with only the presence of a ghost, Saber would accompany the Einzbern Master back to their castle retreat.
…but halfway through their long and lonely trek around the outskirts of Fuyuki, Illyasviel stopped in acute alarm. “There’s a Servant on the faint edge of my perception.”
Saber materialized almost instantly, hand on the scales of justice at their hip. “Pardon me, young Einzbern, but is this not the veritable middle of nowhere? What is a Servant doing here? Are they itching for a clash of arms?”
Illyasviel frowned. “We’re in the middle of the forest, there aren’t even any buildings… Oh, wait.” She paused in concentration. “There’s actually a ruin that was used in the third war on the other side of the river. I’d forgotten about it, but it’s a plausible base of operations.”
“That’s somewhat sloppy of you to forget,” Saber commented in a neutral tone.
Illyasviel ignored them, seriousness gleaming in her eyes. “You’re the one itching for a clash of arms, so let’s crash their party.”
Saber nodded. “So after all, it begins tonight. I solemnly pray that evil will quickly be defeated.”
“Hmm? Doesn’t it bother you for villains to kill each other off, still lacking the taste of your sword of justice?” Illya asked sarcastically as they trekked towards their destination.
“You will learn that evil is wont to tear itself apart. It is no shame, for bloodied hands attract the sins of the victim… Whether or not it is my sword which sends evildoers to Hell directly, its edge shall cut their wickedness nonetheless. And in addition to that!” Saber bent down to face Illyasviel. “God’s wrath is in the fate of all sinners alike. You should do well to remember this, young lady.”
“...”
“But, it is true that I yearn for every wrongdoer to taste my own blade with their dying breath. Tarnishing the holy cup with the grease of subhuman desires… such a sin deserves nothing less than such a death. You are a wise child.”
“Itching for a fight indeed.”
Saber laughed. “Ah, you do not understand after all. I seek not violence, but retribution! My sword arm may thirst for blood, but it is only dirty, base blood which satisfies it. It is a matter which none but a knight would understand, much less a woman.”
Illyasviel frowned and began to say something. “But Saber, you are a woman-” She paused, looking ahead. “Oh, they’ve come out to meet us.”
A presence approached rapidly.
“A pleasing sight for the enemy to have manners. Nothing shames one more than a wound to the back. Or perhaps it is more likely that they think themselves worthy to face an honorable knight of the Queen and win? Evil does produce many such fools.” Saber grinned, holding their sword at the ready.
A towering figure emerged in front of them; realistically not much taller in height than Saber, but possessing such an intimidating aura that one might think them even twice as tall. Their physique was impressively built, but it was only the scarred, practical build of a working man rather than the power-filled bulk of a warrior. Glowing curses wrapped around his arms and hung down towards the ground like chains; one arm hung at his side and the other was positioned as if ready to block a blow.
“Chains… dark skin… An African-American hero…?” Illyasviel muttered to herself hesitantly.
“You face the knight of Justice in the class of Saber! What manner of villain are you? Identify yourself, foreign Servant!” Saber confidently pointed their sword towards their opponent.
“What did justice do to earn my name? The justice I know ain’t no friend of mine, that’s for sure. You can curse my name on your own time.”
“I see you blaspheme against the Grail instead of seeking it for evil. I will strike you down with pleasure.” Saber approached the calm Servant with killing intent bared in the form of their sword.
The man only raised an eyebrow, somehow managing to block Saber’s sword without even moving his arm. Perhaps Saber expected their sword to cleave through the man’s chains without resistance, and intentionally swung at his blocking forearm.
“Go ahead, cut me free of my chains,” the man spat, baring his teeth, “Your sword would slice right through all my people’s chains like butter, wouldn’t it? C’mon, bare your real sword to me.”
Saber jumped back. “Those chains bind you to the Grail, do they not? Do you not participate in this war of your own volition, blasphemer?”
The Servant put his fist over his heart, chains swinging with the motion. “Just because I’ll gladly fight heroes like you doesn’t mean I like returning to my parents’ servitude. I won't accept a slave-master and pursue unfulfillable wishes. My chains will break, even if I have to crush the cup with my own calloused hands.”
“Listen to yourself. What a pitiful blasphemer, a shame to not only Servants but all Heroic Spirits. I pray you repent before you rot in Hell.”
“It's different for a hero,” he snarled in response. “It’s a knight’s duty not to rock the boat, right? But it’s a slave-driver’s lie that a slave must be good to his master.”
“Direct rejection of Christ’s word, the Word of God?? Why, I shall slay you where you stand.”
"I don't know your Christ. My Christ gives salvation to the persecuted. My God is the God of song and dance and jubilation.”
“Then dance and sing, lowly filth.” Saber charged, sword poised to deal a fatal strike, and the calm Servant parried with a great echoing blow from a newly-manifested sledgehammer.
Illyasviel narrowed her eyes. “John Henry?”
After parrying another strike, it was the other Servant’s turn to jump back. “Your Master is just a child?” John Henry shook his head. "What cruelty led a child to wield your blade, Saber?"
Saber interrupted with an ill-mannered laugh. “No one wields my sword of justice but God, through my Queen, and then through myself. I accept this child as a Master only in formality.”
Calm as ever, Henry swatted aside each of Saber’s furious strikes. “Knight of God or knight of girl, she still chose to hold your reins.”
Saber’s golden sword furiously sparked against Henry’s hammer and chains, though they quickly drew back every time their sword strikes his curses. “This is an obedient, God-fearing little girl who would never be so malicious as to use her Seals upon me.”
The great gonging echoes of magic and steel and magic steel carried over the clearing, Henry’s hammer-blows constantly at risk of causing Saber to lose control of their blade. “And you wonder why I fight in this war? Hero or not, you’re as unwillingly bound as I am. Your Holy Grail summoned you here.”
The heat of the sword cleaved through the air and its sparks boiled the dew on the sledgehammer’s surface. Magical energy resonated with every blow, but Henry’s hammer was far harder than his chains. Yet still, the sword beamed with all the undimmed color and energy of dawn. “My God’s hand summoned me here, while blasphemous mages’ hands are hungry to bind me.”
Henry refused to attack, and Saber refused to pour more power into their weapon. A highly artificial stalemate.
“I don’t want to be processed by the circuits and gears of the Grail System at all. You’ll never understand my feelings," Henry growled.
Illya called out a frustrated command to Saber. “His parameters are pitiful, just obliterate him with a single strike, Saber!”
“You do not call my fights, young Einzbern, and my enemy even less so. I will kill him without breaking his chains. Any other action would be shameful.”
Illya stamped her foot down. “This is not a game, Saber,” she warned, but only under her breath.
“Y’all heroes and your dull swords are shameful enough already, knight jester.”
“No edge is dull enough to compare to your hammerhead.”
John Henry grinned and laughed a good-natured laugh even through his disdain. “My bad, knight jester, you’re right. Only fair to use your pistol butt when the enemy brings a knife to a gunfight, after all!”
“On the contrary, to wield more than minimal power against you would be bringing a gun to a knife fight.”
“Then I’ll gladly take a throwing stance - catch!” With a burst of supernatural power and speed, Henry blistered towards Saber and swung towards their head.
Saber ducked below the hammer, triumphantly stabbing their sword towards the enemy’s chest in almost the same motion.
Henry blocked it with a newly-manifested shorter hammer in the other hand. “The working man’s got many tools, knight jester,” he teased.
“And not a single one to cut chains,” Saber returned, overpowering Henry’s considerable grip and sending the smaller hammer flying with a thrust of their sword.
“Don’t be a hypocrite, knight jester. Any tool can cut a chain, but none are as good at it as Justice’s unsheathed blade.” John Henry now wielded a long, sharp implement in his other hand. “But that’s not the tool for boat-rocking, is it? No, those are the ones in my hands.” Henry jumped towards Saber, causing them to retreat a couple meters in alarm, and in a single practiced motion, he tossed the long implement into the ground and hammered it in. A great explosion rippled through the earth, tossing Saber back towards Illyasviel.
“What on Earth is that?” Saber stammered, not so much injured as perplexed.
“John Henry was known for digging out tunnels. He would hammer a drill into solid rock to make a recess for explosives. It seems the whole multi-step, multi-person process has been solidified and collapsed into that Noble Phantasm,” Illyasviel explained. “Irritating, but nothing insurmountable. I’m sure you can deal with explosions.”
“I’ve dealt with worse, to be sure, but this is a novel challenge…”
Somewhat amused, Henry tossed another drill into the ground and rested his boot on it. “You’d almost think you’ve never seen a steel-driving man before,” he called sarcastically.
“Just use more power. You don’t even need your sword’s True Name,” Illyasviel urged her Servant.
Saber shook their head. “I must give criminals a chance to suffer. Besides, sending any old evildoer directly to hell with all my power would shame me as a knight of Justice.”
“You could literally obliterate him alongside his chains! This is such a ridiculous waste of time…” Illya sighed deeply, and turned her attention inward, to her Magic Circuits, and circulated just a bit of energy through them, just a tap. The mana cascaded throughout her nerve pathways, which directly linked to her Command Seals. It would be almost trivial to command Saber to end this battle, and then she could easily continue to restrain them for the whole duration of the war to avoid the fallout. And… she would probably need to at some point, but, at the moment she would just be patient. Let them play their little game until it threatens her goals…
Saber and John Henry danced their dance, Henry parrying every blistering sword strike, and Saber jumping clear of every explosion. Saber’s self-imposed restriction continued to keep them from gaining the upper hand, but nor could Henry one-up his opponent. Taking a momentary breath, he conjured several drills at once from his infinite supply to fill his left hand, and with a single throw, pinned them all around the battlefield.
One, two, three, seven… Saber gave up counting their number, it was impossible. From this moment onward, nowhere on the battlefield could be assumed safe. Every position was rigged, but this was no big deal - fighting in constant motion, it was just like fighting on horseback, after all.
Saber smiled an ill-meaning smile, a humorous idea coming to mind. “Why, I think I’ve overestimated you, malcontent,” they said, sheathing their sword and instead summoning a great, impractical, brightly colored jousting lance. “This is just a game after all.”
“It’s all just a game to a real hero,” John Henry answered solemnly. “It’s no game to me.”
“What a joke,” Illyasviel muttered. Even Saber’s silly toy seemed capable of besting this low-tier Servant. She frowned. Then again, the jousting lance did seem suspiciously powerful - it was not even close to the level of a Noble Phantasm, but enough magical energy filled it that Illyasviel rescinded her judgement of it as a silly toy. “I suppose this is Saber’s stubborn way of ending the fight…”
Confidently, Saber flitted from position to position, thrusting the lance at Henry each time he approached to upturn the land beneath their feet, and even affording glancing blows he could not fully block.
Even all ironic mirth having left his face, John Henry scowled, grasping a far longer drill behind his back.
Saber smugly gripped the lance, internally ridiculing Henry for his half-assed attempt at deceit. The battleground was already a minefield, another mine subtly placed meant nothing. The enemy jumped forward, and Saber saw victory in the slightly differing movements of his arm - a slight, yet perfect opening for a thrust to the chest.
Saber noticed, of course, that the subtle change in movement corresponded to a significant change in the trajectory of Henry’s sledgehammer strikes, but even at an angle impossible to dodge, they knew that their armor would reflect it effortlessly.
However, what Saber missed by disregarding the exact trajectory of the hammer was that it would miss them entirely, albeit by only a slight amount. Just as Saber’s lance triumphantly slipped past Henry’s defenses, his sledgehammer hammered home on its target - an entire foot away from Saber’s chest. Clink, went the sound of Henry’s drill, prefacing an unexpected great explosion at point-blank range.
“Saber-!!” Illya yelled with sudden alarm as Saber flew backwards with incredible momentum directly into a tree. Saber’s silly lance, broken into a useless splintered half, hung limply in their grip, but although blackened by ash and far more injured than anticipated, the rest of Saber was by and large intact. More telling, though, was the smug look they still gave at their now distant opponent.
Illya turned to see John Henry on his knees, unharmed by his own explosion, but speared cleanly through by Saber’s ridiculous toy. “You win the game, Saber, but I lose my life,” he muttered derisively, and then dematerialized into nothingness.
Saber picked themselves up from the Servant-shaped indent in the tree trunk, and dusted themselves off casually. “Well, that was good fun. I am impressed by your detection skills for leading us to this little battle, young Einzbern.”
Illya shook her head in disbelief and sighed again. This was an exhausting day. “C’mon Saber, we need to continue to the ruin. Your lance trick didn’t outright kill him, so if we leave the Master be he’ll probably recover.”
Saber nodded. “It would be pointless to defeat an enemy twice, especially one bested so thoroughly,” they agreed.
Entering the ruined house as confidently as a victorious combatant deserves, the pair come across the pitiful Master cowering in a back closet.
“He’s barely even a mage… Henry must have been displeased by his summoner and killed them, then somehow made a contract with an ordinary civilian… He spoke so righteously, yet he must have sustained himself on human souls. What a hypocrite,” Illyasviel scoffed, waving off Saber from taking the poor boy’s head. “It is an incredibly bizarre happening for lost Command Seals to be redistributed, and not even to a mage but a complete interloper, but it’s attested in past wars so I can’t even be surprised.” She bent down and spoke out a few enchantments to put the ill-suited Master to sleep and to numb his sense of pain, and then used a ritual knife to sever the hand marked with three Command Seals.
Saber watched in bemusement as Illya carefully patched up the bleeding stump of the slumbering boy’s arm. “Was he not a base sinner?” they asked.
“Just someone at the wrong place and the wrong time, Saber. And besides, it doesn’t hurt to be merciful every now and again, Miss Justice.”
“You are not wrong, but, hmm. I am impressed at your maturity, young Einzbern, but I wonder if your mercy will not become a burden to you in future.”
“Not before your lack of it does, I’m sure.”
“I am not unmerciful, but all things in moderation, dear child, all things in moderation.”
“Indeed,” Illya muttered, leaving the former Master behind, and alive. He was not the first Master to be stuck in the wrong place and time, and he would be far from the last.
Chapter Two
Fuyuki City never really recovered from the incident in 1994. It was still clearly visible to the inhabitants, that great blemish atop the mountain. Sure, there were the casualties in the temple, and at the mountain foot, but a decade had passed, and life moved on for most. In general, to the citizens of Fuyuki, this scorched ground was the only remaining testament to the tragedy.
Mt. Enzou, bathed in flame. One could almost imagine it had been a long-dormant volcano, awakening suddenly with a great eruption. The official story was that gases collected in a hidden cavern had suddenly combusted, and this was accepted with little complaint given all the local folktales about ghostly mountain caves. Of course, the burned land of the mountain scar had an air of unnaturalness that even the entirely oblivious could feel, but everyone seemed to decide that they would be better off not thinking about it.
It was the slope of this very same stained mountain, a wall in the morning sky, that a young girl gazed absently at from her porch as she brushed her teeth. This girl was not one of the entirely oblivious - she knew for certain that something unnatural had occurred that night ten years ago. It would take something significant to turn her father pale-faced and trembling at the very mention of that night, but whatever it was seemed to have robbed him of the power to relate it. To his last breath he never spoke of it, so in the end his daughter knew no particular secret.
Having absentmindedly relegated the toothbrush to one side of her mouth, the girl started brushing the other side. This girl’s name was Irisu Emiya, though this was not a name that survived that calamity. Whatever happened on that mountain, it robbed her as well, depriving her of her birth name and birth family. She was just an infant then, so whatever life she had was long gone now. She was happy to be named by the man who had saved her, happy to call him her father, happy to become his daughter, she was happy to…
Irisu paused in her brushing.
She was… fine with letting what happened ten years ago die with her father. That seemed to be what he wanted, anyways. She was just a middle school girl, or soon to be anyways, and was probably better off without a mystery looming over her. She barely paid it any mind, but couldn’t help but think of it some. Just a little.
Nodding to herself, she continued brushing her teeth.
After Kiritsugu’s death, Irisu was heavily fussed over by the Fujimuras, and it quite naturally came to be that her “older sister” Taiga Fujimura became her guardian. While Fuji-nee always got rather offended when mistaken for Irisu’s mother (“Do I look old enough for that!?”), it was undeniable that her strong parenthood helped little Irisu get through the loss of her father without lasting scars.
The old ladies of the neighborhood often remarked that it was a great relief Irisu grew up all right after those losses, but she always found it a bit rude: “a) it’s none of their business, b) I’m a strong girl, it doesn’t take a miracle for me to grow up properly, and c) how do they even know how I feel anyways?” She never said so to their faces, though - she may have developed a rebellious streak from Fuji-nee, but in general she was quite polite.
On that note, Fuji-nee approached from behind as Irisu finished brushing. “I hope you’re treating your teachers well at the end of the year, Irisu,” she said with a little grumble.
Irisu casually spat her toothpaste off of the verandah and returned inside for a drink. “I’m not the troublemaker in my class… Fuji-nee, your students have been causing trouble?”
Taiga Fujimura, despite her unserious and occasionally catty attitude, was a rather well-liked high school teacher. She taught English, which Irisu thought seemed too sophisticated for Fuji-nee, and supervised the archery club, which she thought suited her better, even if her real weapon was the shinai.
“Bleeeh, yeah. Archery club got roped into a scandal started by the track club again… Also, don’t spit in the grass, go to the sink.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Irisu replied, heading to the bathroom to rinse out her mouth.
She met her own dark brown eyes in the bathroom mirror, and then frowned. A dribble of toothpaste made its way down her chin, and a few strands of hair from her head had stuck to it. She wiped her face, and then tied her hair back before rinsing and spitting into the sink, and the hastily made straight ponytail settled just below her shoulders.
Taiga walked past the bathroom as Irisu finished up. With alarm, she noticed that her sister was wielding not only her shinai, but also a severe frown.
“F-Fuji-nee?”
“Irisu, did you see anyone in the yard? There looks like there’s footprints around the shed....”
“No, and if I did I’m sure you wouldn’t need to whack them with your shinai… please put that away… Are you even sure they’re human footprints?”
“Irisu, there aren’t any other animals that wear shoes. I won’t stand for thieves skulking around, there’s precious memories in that shed.”
Irisu sighed. “I’ve never even seen you take anything out of there. What precious memories?”
Taiga paused in consideration for a moment, tapping her shinai against her shoulder. “I don’t remember!”
“.........anyways, I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation requiring zero violence, but I’ll tell you if I see anything.” She rolled her eyes as she undid her hair and left the bathroom. “Don’t you have to get to school already? I’m on track to be on time, but you’re a teacher.”
“There’s nothing to do before class this morning, so I thought I’d walk with you to the bus today,” Taiga explained. In the nineties, a child murderer had terrorized Fuyuki, and several of his victims on the Enzou side of the river disappeared on their way home from school. In the aftermath, a committee of concerned parents had pushed for bus routes accommodating elementary schoolers, and the public transit schedule had remained the same ever since.
“As long as you leave the shinai at home…”
Taiga successfully disarmed, the two sisters headed off.
Irisu had thought Taiga’s silly concerns left well behind with the shinai, but while approaching the bus stop, Taiga kept throwing shifty glances behind her.
“Fuji-nee, what are you even doing?”
“That guy isn’t from around here. Do you think that’s who was snooping in the yard?”
Irisu glanced behind her. Sure enough, she didn’t recognize the figure, but they weren’t otherwise conspicuous. She’d even seen stranger strangers around - like the foreigners the Tohsaka family associated with.
“No, and I think you should forget about the whole shed thing. Someone was probably just, I dunno, chasing their dog or something?”
“Hey, but then there’d be dog footprints.” Taiga looked slightly proud of herself for realizing this.
“And can you tell me for certain that there weren’t dog prints, and you didn’t just immediately run for your shinai?”
Taiga grumbled indistinctly as a response, still warily eyeing the stranger as they both approached the bus stop. When they had sidled up to a couple meters away, Taiga was still staring, and Irisu nudged her to get her to stop.
“Fuji-nee, that’s rude,” she whispered, as Taiga watched the stranger idly pick their nose. Finger still carelessly buried, they turned their head to see Taiga’s glare, and gave her a reproachful look. Taiga finally turned away, embarrassed.
“H-hey, Irisu, the bus is coming,” she pointed out, despite the bus only just having turned onto the long road.
“Uh, yeah.” Irisu sighed in relief as Kumehara-san, a middle-aged businessman renowned in the neighborhood for his height, arrived between them and blocked Taiga’s view of the stranger.
The bus ride proceeded without incident, perhaps because the stranger hadn’t sat down anywhere near them, but Irisu hoped it was because she successfully convinced Fuji-nee that her worries were neither reasonable nor helpful. ‘Just had a bad feeling,’ she’d said. It wasn’t very much like her. Well, the impulsiveness was, but not the anxiety. In the end though, she shrugged it off. It’s not like Fuji-nee’s emotional memory was long enough for her to still be worried at the end of the day, Irisu thought.
Indeed, it didn’t even seem to persist throughout the whole bus trip, and neither sister paid attention to what stop the stranger got off at, if any. Irisu said farewell to her older sister when the Homurahara bus stop came up, and Taiga left the bus with only minor annoyance. Her greater fears had been swept away when she lost rock-paper-scissors against Irisu for who had to clean the dojo floor.
In truth, Irisu didn’t mind doing it, but felt it important to make Fuji-nee do chores and not just kick back at the Emiya residence whenever she felt like it. She liked to insist that it wasn’t actually her house whenever the matter of maintenance came up, but it was already her second home when Kiritsugu was around, she started sleeping there every day once he fell ill, and continued after his passing. When called out though, she would just insist that the Homurahara Academy offices listed her address as the Fujimura residence.
With a painful twinge of nostalgia, Irisu remembered that her father was the one who taught Fuji-nee her English, and recalled how proud he was when she was hired as a teacher at Homurahara Academy, a school that had just been rebuilt after being mostly destroyed in the Enzou explosion.
She had apparently applied to other schools in the area, but had the highest hopes of teaching there on account of being one of the original school’s attendees when it was destroyed. Kiritsugu had actually provided a lot of funds to the rebuilding efforts, maybe out of sympathy for Taiga’s troubles as one of the influx of displaced students and staff. Irisu was very young, but dimly remembered that her sister had been very unfond of the high school she ended up graduating from.
That was actually not the only reason Fuji-nee was hit pretty hard by the Enzou explosion - apparently, one of her closest friends was a son of the mountain temple’s main priest, who had been one of the tragedy’s few casualties. Fuji-nee’s father and grandfather were close to the family as well, and when some quirk of fate left the youngest sibling an orphaned survivor, her parents actually adopted him. Although they were siblings of a sort, Irisu didn’t have much of a relationship with him, and thought of him in rather unfortunately distant terms. Issei Ryuudou was very quiet and reclusive after all, and never visited the Emiya residence. Fuji-nee called him “a sweet younger brother, but too quiet for his own good, and very bad with people”.
For a while, Fuji-nee was actually proactive about the three of them hanging out, but she was discouraged after an over-eager invitation to the summer festival turned into a pretty severe panic attack for Issei. Fuji-nee felt really guilty about it, and seemed to think that she had pushed him too hard, because she rarely arranged for them to hang out after that. In Fuji-nee’s defense, Irisu never thought Issei was reluctant to hang out with her; he certainly never viewed her coldly, but it seems a more siblingly relationship was never meant to be.
Although she had drifted into a melancholy mood with these thoughts, and this cloud drifted with her off of the bus, Irisu cheered up when she saw her friend and classmate Mimi Katsura.
“Mimi-chaaan, over here!” she called, though she was already heading that way.
“Good morning, Iri-chan,” Mimi yawned. “How’s your morning?”
Irisu frowned. “Uh, fine. Well, weird, but it’s not important.”
“Um, okay…?”
“How’s yours? You don’t look too awake…” Irisu asked, peering at her friend as she stifled another yawn.
“Ah, yeah, no… Uh, I mean, I am tired, I stayed up late drawing.”
“Whatcha drawing?”
“Some cool things. I’ll show you in the classroom.”
Irisu nodded and smiled. By ‘cool’, she understood that it was probably some shounen manga kind of design. Mimi had pivoted from drawing mostly scenery to mostly sci-fi designs recently after her little brother got her into some anime he liked. Irisu didn’t really care about that kind of thing, but she liked Mimi’s drawings a lot, plus it finally allowed her to convince her friend to watch the magical girl anime that Irisu did like. She actually had, displayed on her bedroom wall, a nice drawing of her favorite show’s main character that Mimi drew for her as an eleventh birthday present. Inspired by this, Irisu tried drawing a mecha for Mimi’s birthday, but she wasn’t very good at drawing and it didn’t turn out very well at all, so she embarrassedly set it aside and baked a nice cake instead. Later, Mimi found the sketch in Irisu’s notebook, and hung it up on her bedroom wall anyways.
They were pretty good friends.
In the classroom, before class starts, a desk full of Mimi’s drawings, Irisu was immersed in a mundane but special part of her day. It went by as quickly as such things do, sliding into class time, into boredom and work, and back into stolen snippets of silly conversation, into smiles and stifled giggles, and back to class again.
Irisu wasn’t a bad student - she was a good student by most standards, the sort studious enough to cover for what she was short to understand, and quick enough to understand what she was unwilling to study for. But Irisu found it tempting to linger more than a slow pace’s worth in the halls, or to take time in the bathroom for no reason other than exchanging secrets like the gossip-prone cliques (though with more wholesome topics than mud-slinging).
Irisu wasn’t a bad student, but she shared some priorities with habitual underachievers - she didn’t go to school to learn. She learned willingly, sure, but that’s not what she valued in her day. It wasn’t why she was happy to put on her uniform on weekdays, it wasn’t why she didn’t dread becoming a high schooler and having to go to school over the weekends. (Though her favorite anime mostly aired on the weekends, so she wasn’t in any hurry. That one anime Mimi and her brother like aired after school on a weekday, how lucky…)
It was another quiet moment, one of the last couple of the day, and Mimi was studying during this one, writing down definitions on a paper she had doodled on over earlier periods. Maybe Mimi did go to school to learn. Maybe she valued that in her day more than her offhand chats with Irisu. Maybe so, maybe so, but even so…
“Hey, Mimi-chan, are you going to watch Phantasmoon Eclipse this weekend since you’re finally caught up with the first two volumes?” Irisu asked Mimi, over her textbook.
…she couldn’t really help it. She couldn’t pass up encroaching on this time for another mundane moment. She wanted to let go of as little as possible, when every day, tomorrow could be different.
Mimi closed her textbook and replied after a short pause. “Oh yeah, I forgot. There’s nothing I’d miss?”
“Nothing super important. You can watch the rest of the episodes when the third volume comes out, but I think they’re working up to introduce another interesting plot for the fourth volume, so you shouldn’t wait.”
“As good as the first volume?”
“Maybe as good as the first season.”
“What? But the second season introduced the Brainwashing Detective.”
“Yeah, but the first season’s plot is objectively better.”
Mimi stuck out her tongue at that. “Yeah okay sure. The first season is so much better that the explosions have less frames.”
“That has nothing to do with the plot. Also, the second season has all those unnecessary booby jiggles for the older audience.” Irisu mimed that she had comically large breasts with her hands.
Mimi blinked cluelessly. “That has nothing to do with the plot either. And the Brainwashing Detective doesn’t have enough boobies for that so I didn’t notice.”
“You count explosion frames and miss booby jiggles? I guess you mostly pay attention to the Brainwashing Detective, but she causes like, half as many explosions as Magical Amber.”
Irisu’s sorely stolen time continued, and just like that, the school day started to draw to its close. Classes were over, club was over, and the winter sun waved goodbye to its sky, drawing long lines over the school field.
“Hey, Mimi, since it’s dark already, can I take your bus home?” Although the Fuyuki Jack case ended soon before the Enzou explosion (leading many to suspect that the culprit was a priest), it was still a terror fresh in the minds of many parents, and most taught their children a wariness of the dark. Although this didn’t extend to Irisu’s father (nor sister), it was a convenient security that created more time for idleness between friends, so in the winter Irisu made a habit of taking Mimi’s bus to its only stop within walking distance of the Emiya residence.
“Yeah, of course.”
“I need to go to the bathroom though, wait for me.”
“The bus is almost here, so hurry up!”
And suddenly, a minute lingered was too long, and Irisu was left alone. Perhaps she spaced out and time skipped a beat, or perhaps the bus was a little early, or perhaps Mimi decided she didn’t even care to wait on a friend who interrupts her study time.
Irisu stood in the empty classroom doorway in silence for a second, and then her eyes flashed with a curious insistence, and in a heartbeat she turned and sprinted out of the school, not even bothering to grab her bag, not even bothering to change her shoes. She ran across the field with the purpose of a track club member, blistered past the gates, and wore two years out of her indoor shoes with a whiplash-inducing turn on the concrete. She triumphantly blazed through half of the home stretch -
Pant. Pant. Pant.
The pitter-patter of her poor shoes grating away ceased, and her breathing broke out into panting gasps for air. Irisu had turned the corner, the bus stop now visible, only to see its retreating lights several blocks down.
Pant. Pant.
The lights shrunk, leisurely passing by block after block.
Pant.
They turned away, briefly becoming a streak, and then nothingness.
Sigh.
Irisu took off her shoes, and, feeling thoroughly silly, retraced her running strides with a slow sock-clad trudge back to the school. She sighed again, and then laughed, and then sighed differently.
“I’m a fool,” she thought, maybe aloud. The dirt and dust gathering on her socks would complement the eroded soles of her school shoes nicely, so she took those off too.
In the end, she ended up jamming tarnished school shoes in her locker, hole-ridden dirty socks in her bag, sore bare feet in her outdoor shoes, and thoughts to the back of her mind.
Another school day ended when she exited the school gates for the second time.
Who knows whether tomorrow would bring more of today?
Unfortunately for Irisu, some did know what tomorrow would bring, and anticipated it with bated breaths.
Poor, poor Irisu. She lived in the wrong place at the wrong time, and narrowly avoided a baptism by fire, a baptism by all the world’s evil, against all odds having lost little more than her name… only to graduate to the wrong place and time again.
It would be a perversion to even call it fate. It was nothing more than a shitty coincidence, that she lived so close to the sin of the decade prior, that that one had stumbled upon it, that a lost moment left her alone, right on the sundown before the conditions became perfect.
Not anything like fate. No puzzle pieces came together, it was just a bad joke, a silly, silly, tragedy.
Irisu froze as if she had suddenly grown roots. Her eyes widened. She recalled Fuji-nee’s ‘bad feeling’. She felt it now too, an indistinct mist of anxiety in the air. From the alley at her side, an unfamiliar figure emerged, and Irisu’s terrified eyes met…
Those eyes. Eyes piercing with unmistakable but senseless, incomprehensible malevolence, a gaze sharply inducing a placeless terror within her bones. Otherwise unremarkable except for this fact, an ordinary municipal worker leered with an impossible pair of eyes.
Even with such an alarming figure a mere handful of meters away from her, Irisu stood frozen for several moments as the worker took unhurried steps towards her.
Run, screamed Irisu in her mind, but her legs hurt, and her energy was nearly depleted. The air was heavy with hopelessness, saturated with futility. Her breaths caught in her throat, the illusory thickness of the air seeming to conspire to hold her in place. The worker had halved the distance between them already with their careless saunter.
Even so, run!
Backing up and nearly falling over herself, Irisu turned tail and sprinted back in the direction of the school, legs smoldering like fire. It wasn’t as promising a direction as forward, but she didn’t even have the time to think about it.
She pushed forward with all her might, the roadside scenery going past way slower than she wished. Her legs were heavy, her feet were numb, and an unpleasant pain gathered in her chest and abdomen. She felt like she was going to vomit, but she couldn’t stop running until…
Until what?
As she heard the purposeful footfalls of the worker’s long running stride behind her, anxiety and despair clouded her thoughts, and she couldn’t even think of a safe destination. Something was in the air, there was a bad feeling…
Ah, I’ve reached my limit -
Irisu gave up, and as she did, her legs gave out as well. She collapsed onto the sidewalk, skinning at least one of her knees, but the pain didn’t even register over the aching of her muscles. She rolled over, breathing heavily and raggedly, her heart beating as fast as it ever had before. There were more stars in the night sky than usual - the entire neighborhood was dark.
No one was around to save poor little Irisu, defeated on the sidewalk. Her energy was squeezed thoroughly out of her, leaving her small body as pitiful and useless as a crushed aluminum can, a piece of trash littered onto the roadside.
The worker, knowing this very well, jogged over as unbothered as ever. He bent over and entered Irisu’s field of vision, the terror in her eyes now overflowing as tears. She elevated herself with her arms, but couldn’t even pick herself up to scramble backwards. The figure towering over her outstretched his finger towards her slowly. Unable to escape, Irisu screwed up her eyes tightly as the man touched her forehead -
-and then he collapsed to the ground unceremoniously. A puppet with its strings cut, fallen sideways to lay with his head hanging over the gutter. Irisu lay unharmed, unmoved. A cold breeze tousled her hair slightly, and she regained movement, flexing her sore muscles as if this were the first time she ever used them. She rose to her feet and her scrunched up eyelids opened to reveal those same eldritch eyes of fear and terror. She kicked the man sprawled on the pavement and sneered, narrowing those eyes.
“Were little girls always this frail? I haven’t been inside a child in the longest time,” spat that one in Irisu’s small voice. “Ah, well, the time for caution has ended. Leaving a corpse is good enough…” Irisu’s outdoor shoe now rested on the worker’s unconscious face, and that one frowned. “Not even enough strength to break his neck over the curb?” They removed her foot and instead crouched down and removed her jacket. “Surely even this works for a child if the opponent is unconscious…” They balled up Irisu’s jacket and pressed it tightly against the man’s nose and mouth, sealing off his air supply. The man tossed and turned but didn’t wake up enough to struggle significantly, and eventually fell still. That one sat like that for a couple minutes more for good measure, and when Irisu’s jacket was back on her shoulders, the ordinary municipal worker drew breath no more.
Senseless dirty deed done, that one walked carelessly down the street, in poor, poor Irisu’s body.
chapter three later hopefully
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