Inventory of the powerful vests of the anime, starting with Shirou Emiya

On that day, a live broadcast room that could not be closed appeared in front of people all over the world.

An inventory of powerful vests in anime!

Let’s start by taking stock of the partner of justice – Shirou Emiya!

At first, everyone laughed.

“Huh? An ordinary high school student? Funny, right?”

“I know him. He cooks delicious food and is a very nice person. How could he be a strong man?”

But the next second, when the man in red who forged the infinite sword in the sea of ​​corpses and blood appeared, the whole world fell silent.

Toosaka Rin: “Impossible! This is absolutely fake! How could that idiot who can only repair electrical appliances be a monster who kills mercilessly to protect the world?!”

Saber: “Unlimited Blade Works… Is this your true ideal, Shirou? How many things have you hidden from me?”

Matou Sakura: “Senior… has it always been… so painful?”

And this is just the beginning!

Inventory of the powerful vests of the anime, starting with Shirou Emiya
Chapter 1: The Holy Grail War Mutates! Ignoring the Light Curtain of the Barrier, All the Bosses Are Shocked!
That day, the world changed.
Whether it is Fuyuki City where the Holy Grail War is taking place, or the distant Einzbern Castle in Germany, or any corner of the world.
A golden light curtain unfolded before everyone’s eyes without any warning.
It doesn’t feel like a projection, but more like a concept imprinted directly on the retina.
Whether you close your eyes or hide underground, you cannot escape its presence.
Sacred, grand, irresistible.
…
【Fuyuki City·Tosaka Residence】
Inside the underground magic workshop.
Toosaka Rin was the first to notice something was wrong.
“Are you kidding me?”
She suddenly stood up from the table where she was fiddling with the gems, her face full of disbelief.
The magic workshop’s barrier showed no reaction.
The warning runes set up at the door were dead silent.
The golden light curtain that suddenly appeared before her eyes was like a ghost, ignoring all the defenses she had set up as a magician.
It just hangs there as if it has existed since time immemorial.
“Invasion? No… This isn’t any known magic at all!”
Cold sweat broke out on Toosaka Rin’s forehead.
This was beyond her comprehension, even beyond any great magic she had read in the manuscripts of her father, Tousaka Tokiomi.
This is a miracle that borders on the realm of magic.
Who is it?
The Holy Grail War has just begun. Is this the work of some unknown Master? Or… is this a manifestation of the Holy Grail itself?
Her mind raced, trying to use her knowledge to analyze the incomprehensible scene before her.
【Fuyuki City·Emiya Residence】
Inside the warehouse.
Shirou Emiya was grimacing at a reinforced water pipe that had “projected” out of thin air on his palm.
The burning sensation from the magic circuit’s operation hadn’t subsided yet when he froze.
“What… is that?”
A golden light curtain appeared out of thin air in front of his eyes.
Warm, yet with an unquestionable majesty.
Beside him, the girl in the blue knight’s skirt and armor—Saber—instantly clenched the invisible holy sword in her hand and stood in front of him.
“Master, please step back!”
Her expression was more solemn than ever before, and her emerald eyes were fixed on the light curtain.
“This magic… no, it can’t even be called magic.”
Saber’s intuition was frantically sounding the alarm.
This wasn’t the Noble Phantasm of any Servant she knew.
The aura emanating from that light curtain belonged neither to a heroic spirit nor to a human.
It’s more like a… “declaration” of a higher dimension.
She felt like she was facing a formidable enemy.
In the Holy Grail War, any unknown is equivalent to deadly danger.
【Einzbern Castle · Fuyuki Forest】
In a luxurious room, the silver-haired, red-eyed girl Illyasviel von Einzbern was sitting in front of the fireplace, looking at the snowy scene outside the window.
Behind her, a giant as majestic as a mountain—Berserker—stood quietly.
The moment the golden light curtain appeared, Berserker let out a low roar.
“roar–!”
His bestial instincts made him feel threatened.
Illya clapped her hands happily, her red eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Be quiet, Berserker.”
She tilted her head and looked at the light curtain with interest.
“Oh? Is this a new toy from someone?”
“How interesting! I can actually pass through the Einzbern barrier. Is some Master challenging me?”
In Illya’s eyes, this was just a new part of a game that was about to begin.
She didn’t think anything could hurt her in this castle, in front of Berserker.
Einzbern Castle, Germany
The time needs to be pushed forward a little.
The Magician Killer—Emiya Kiritsugu—was standing by the window, wiping his Contender.
His eyes were as cold as ice.
On the bed behind him, his wife, Irisviel von Einzbern, was looking at him with a smile.
“Kiritsugu, don’t be so nervous.”
“I know,” Emiya Kiritsugu replied without turning his head, “It’s just a habit.”
Just then.
The golden light curtain appeared in front of him and Irisviel at the same time.
“Click.”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s movements stopped.
His pupils contracted to the extreme in an instant.
“Ellie! Stay behind me!”
He didn’t even have time to think, his body had already reacted as quickly as possible, protecting Irisviel behind him and pointing the gun at the empty light curtain.
However, it was of no use.
The light curtain seemed not to exist in this physical world.
“This is……”
Irisviel looked at the scene before her with a look of astonishment on her face.
She could sense that this wasn’t magic.
“Kiritsugu, calm down. It seems… it has no malicious intent.”
“On the battlefield, incomprehensible phenomena are themselves the greatest malice.”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s voice was extremely hoarse.
intelligence.
He needs intelligence.
What is this thing? What is its purpose? Who created it?
Countless questions exploded in his mind.
This unreasonable thing is the biggest variable in his realization of his ideal.
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ActivityRegister as a Filo member and receive 200 points![Register Now]Chapter 2: The foundations of the Holy Grail War are shaken! A review of the rules that will overturn the rules begins! (Old version)
【Fuyuki City·Unknown High-rise】
“Hehe…hahahahaha!”
The man in golden armor, the Hero King Gilgamesh, was looking down at the city with a glass of red wine.
When the light curtain appeared, he was stunned for a moment.
Then, he laughed joyfully.
“Oh? There’s actually a bastard who dares to play such an unauthorized trick in front of me?”
There was no trace of nervousness in his scarlet snake eyes, but instead they were full of amusement.
It can ignore his perception and project the image directly into his field of vision.
The methods of the person behind this are indeed quite interesting.
“Let me see what kind of farce you, a bug hiding behind the scenes, are planning to stage.”
He shook his glass, waiting for the show to begin.
To him, both the Holy Grail and the suddenly appearing curtain of light were merely sideshows for his entertainment.
Just when countless people around the world were shocked, panicked and curious about this.
Finally, a line of text slowly emerged on the golden light curtain.
A line of words that would terrify any magician who understood the literal meaning.
【An inventory of powerful vests in anime! 】
Just one line of words, but it was like a blockbuster bomb, exploding in the hearts of all those who knew about it.
“Vest…inventory?”
Toosaka Rin chewed on these words, and her expression instantly became extremely ugly.
In the modern context, the word “vest” can be understood as “alias” or “disguised identity”.
And for a magician, especially in the context of the Holy Grail War…
It has only one meaning – real name!
“The real name of the powerful one?!”
Toosaka Rin’s heart skipped a beat.
What a joke!
The Heroic Spirit’s True Name is the source of its power, the key to unlocking its Noble Phantasm, and its weakness!
In the Holy Grail War, hiding your true name is the basis of all battles!
This light curtain is actually going to reveal the true names of the powerful in front of the whole world?!
“This isn’t just a provocation… This is subverting the entire Holy Grail War!”
She instantly realized the seriousness of the problem.
If Saber’s real name were to be revealed, her identity as King Arthur and everything she had experienced would become a weakness for the enemy to attack!
No, we must find a way to stop it!
But…how can we stop a “phenomenon” whose principles we cannot even understand?
Emiya Shirou couldn’t understand.
“What does Zongman… mean? What is a vest inventory?”
He was completely unable to understand the meaning of this line of words.
But he could understand Saber’s reaction beside him.
The Knight King, who was usually calm and composed, was breathing rapidly at this moment, and the knuckles of his hand holding the invisible sword turned white from the force.
“Saber?” he asked worriedly.
“Master,” Saber’s voice was low and serious, “This light curtain… its purpose may be to reveal our identities.”
“identity?”
“Yes, my ‘real name’.”
Saber explained solemnly, “Once my true name is revealed, everything about me will be known to the enemy. This is fatal in battle.”
Emiya Shirou finally understood.
Although he was only a half-baked magician, he also knew the importance of intelligence.
He looked at Saber’s extremely serious profile and subconsciously clenched his fists.
“I won’t let that happen.”
Although he didn’t know what he could do, protecting Saber was his responsibility as a Master.
“Oh my, things are getting interesting.”
When Illya saw the words, she smiled even more happily.
“Take stock of the powerful’s vests? Are we going to catch all those guys who are hiding their heads and showing their tails?”
She spun around in a circle excitedly.
“Great! I love seeing the desperate look on other people’s faces when their secrets are revealed!”
To her, this was simply the best drama in the world.
“Berserker is the strongest! There’s no need to hide his identity!”
She puffed out her chest proudly, as if she had seen the other Masters and Servants panicking at the revelation of their identities.
Emiya Kiritsugu’s face was so gloomy that it seemed like water was about to drip out of it.
Intelligence war.
The area he is best at is also the area he fears the most.
This light curtain is simply the most unsolvable and domineering intelligence weapon.
What it wants to disclose is more than just the “real name”.
“Vest”… The meaning of this word is much broader than the real name.
It can be a person’s past, a person’s other identity, a person’s deepest secret.
if……
A terrible thought flashed through Emiya Kiritsugu’s mind.
If this light curtain reveals the deeds of the “Magician Killer” to the public…
If it were to expose all the blood and darkness he had stained in pursuit of his ideals to Irisviel…
When he thought of that possibility, his hand holding the gun began to tremble involuntarily.
It’s not fear, it’s anger.
A kind of anger that comes from having your belongings peeped into and judged by others.
“Kiritsugu…”
Irisviel sensed his emotional fluctuations and gently held his hand from behind.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, “I believe in you no matter what happens.”
Emiya Kiritsugu didn’t say anything, but the coldness in his eyes deepened.
Turn on lazy reading mode
Chapter 3’s First Person Announced: Shirou Emiya?! Everyone’s Stunned! (Old Version)
“Taking stock of the powerful’s vests? Hahahaha——!”
The laughter of the Hero King Gilgamesh was even more unbridled than before.
“How arrogant! How dare a mere unknown thing ‘take stock’ of powerful beings?”
“Good! Excellent!”
His scarlet snake eyes were filled with violent excitement.
“Let me see what worthless people are on your list, you bastard!”
“Let this ignorant bastard of yours see for himself what a truly ‘strong’ person is!”
In his opinion, he is the only one in this world who deserves the title of “strong man”.
As for the “vest”?
He, the heroic king Gilgamesh, acts openly and honestly and never bothers to hide his identity!
This so-called inventory is nothing more than a magnificent opening ceremony for his appearance!
He raised his glass and saluted from afar towards the golden light curtain.
It was as if he was toasting a toy that was about to be crushed by his own hands.
Countless pairs of eyes around the world are focused on that curtain of light at this moment.
Everyone held their breath.
Waiting.
Who will be the first “strong man” to have his “disguise” revealed?
The Hero King’s words had barely left his lips, as if responding to his arrogance.
Above the golden light curtain, the large characters [An inventory of powerful armors from Zongman!] slowly faded away.
Instead, there were a few brand new words emitting a soft glow.
Everyone’s heart was in their throat at this moment.
[First person to be reviewed: Shirou Emiya]“–Why?”
Emiya Shirou froze.
He pointed at his nose, his face full of confusion and disbelief.
“Me? Inventory me?”
Are you kidding me?
“Strong”? How could this word possibly be related to me?
He was just an ordinary high school student who knew some third-rate strengthening magic, a half-baked Master who couldn’t even protect Saber.
Is there something wrong with this light curtain?
Saber, who was standing beside him, also had a hint of surprise in her emerald eyes.
Is it her Master?
This young man who had just signed a contract with him, whose knowledge of magic was so shallow that he didn’t even understand how to use the Command Spells, but who had a certain inexplicable stubbornness?
She calmly shifted her gaze from the light screen to Emiya Shirou, her scrutiny growing stronger.
Perhaps, he is not as simple as he seems.
“Emiya… classmate?”
When Toosaka Rin saw this name, her beautiful eyebrows twisted into a knot.
That figure instantly emerged in my mind—the famous “good guy” in school, who never refused anyone’s request, a member of the Kyudo Club, who helped the student council repair various electrical appliances every day at school…
A complete pushover.
“Take inventory of him? An ordinary person?”
Toosaka Rin’s first reaction was absurdity.
But then, her vigilance as a magician was immediately raised.
wrong.
There must be no reason for being the first one chosen by this mysterious light curtain.
Could it be that… that Emiya Shirou has been pretending all along?
Is his nice-guy appearance all a lie?
Is he actually a powerful magician who is hiding something very deep?
The thought of this possibility gave Rin Tohsaka a chill down her spine.
If this is true, then this man is hiding too deeply!
“Huh? Who is it?”
When Illya saw the unfamiliar name, she puffed up her cheeks with a lack of interest.
“Emiya… Shirou? I’ve never heard of that name. Is he some nobody?”
She had been expecting to see some legendary hero, but what appeared was a name she had never heard of.
It made her feel like opening a gift box with great joy, only to find a stone inside.
“How boring…”
She curled her lips and even didn’t want to read on.
“Emiya…Shirou?”
Irisviel whispered the name softly, confusion in her eyes.
However, Emiya Kiritsugu, who was beside her, was shocked the moment he heard the name!
This name…
Although he hadn’t said it out loud yet, this was exactly the name he had mentally prepared for the boy he had saved from the fire!
He never mentioned it to anyone!
This light curtain can not only interfere with reality, but can even predict the future?!
“Kiritsugu?” Irisviel noticed something was wrong with her husband.
Emiya Kiritsugu did not answer. He stared at the light screen, his eyes becoming darker than ever before.
A feeling of powerlessness as if all his actions were known and a huge fear of the unknown gripped his heart.
What is the origin of this thing?
Three things to do when reading: read, collect, and reward!
Chapter 4: Saber is shocked! Why is my scabbard “Avalon” inside the Master?! (Old version)
“Shirou Emiya?”
The Hero King Gilgamesh drank the last bit of red wine in the cup, with an undisguised look of contempt on his face.
“The bastard’s name.”
“I was expecting some surprises, but the first person to appear was an unknown individual whose name has never been passed down to the world.”
“Boring, so boring!”
His expectations for this inventory instantly dropped to freezing point.
In his view, this was nothing more than a farce to attract attention.
However, just when everyone was thinking differently, the picture on the screen changed.
No more textual explanation.
Instead, there was a sea of ​​fire.
[Screen opens: Endless Purgatory]The flames shooting up into the sky dyed the night sky red.
Black mud flows across the ground, swallowing all life.
The wreckage of buildings, charred corpses, desperate wails, and the crying of children…
A scene like hell descending shocked everyone’s visual nerves.
In the center of the picture, a small figure staggers in the sea of ​​fire.
He was a red-haired boy covered in dirt and with empty eyes.
He walked numbly, stepping over corpses, with no reaction to the tragedy around him, as if his soul had been drained away.
Until he could no longer hold on and fell to the ground.
“Uh…ah…”
The moment Emiya Shirou saw the sea of ​​fire, his pupils suddenly contracted.
The forgotten memories, like a flood, broke through the defenses of his brain.
The scorching air, the stench of burning, the pain of burning skin, and the suffocating despair…
He covered his chest, gasping for breath, his face as pale as paper.
“It was…the fire at that time…”
That was the nightmare of his life and the starting point of all his behavioral logic.
Now, this hell that belongs only to him is exposed nakedly in front of everyone.
Saber saw his pained expression and immediately understood.
“Master, that’s yours…”
She looked at the small figure in the picture, then looked at the suffering boy beside her, a trace of pity in her green eyes.
She recognized it too.
This sea of ​​fire was the final disaster caused by the Fourth Holy Grail War ten years ago.
It turns out… her Master is a survivor of that disaster.
“The…fire in Fuyuki City!”
Toosaka Rin’s breathing also stagnated.
This fire marked the end of her childhood.
It was this that took her father away and changed her life.
She always thought that she was one of the biggest victims.
But at this moment, looking at the boy walking in hell in the picture, she truly felt how cruel the disaster was to an ordinary person.
“That boy… is Emiya-san?”
She muttered to herself.
It turns out that the nice guy who always has a gentle smile on his face also has such a past.
“ah……”
Seeing the hellish scene, Irisviel subconsciously covered her mouth, her eyes filled with fear and pity.
“Kiritsugu… this… this is…”
She turned to look at her husband, only to find that Emiya Kiritsugu’s face had turned completely pale.
Of course he recognized it.
This is exactly the “future” that will result from the Fourth Holy Grail War in which he will soon participate!
It is proof that he pursued the Holy Grail, but ultimately failed and caused a huge disaster!
“Why……”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s voice trembled.
In order to save the world, he is willing to dirty his hands and bear all the sins.
But this light curtain was telling him that everything he did would ultimately lead to such a horrific tragedy?
For him, this was a trial more cruel than any torture.
Illya looked at the sea of ​​fire in the picture without much expression on her face.
But when the polluted black mud appeared, her red eyes narrowed slightly.
“‘All the evil in this world’… Has the contents of the Holy Grail overflowed?”
She felt nothing for the death of humans, but she could recognize the essence of that power.
“Hmph, useless thing. It couldn’t even control the Holy Grail, and ended up like this.”
She snorted coldly, attributing the disaster to the incompetence of the participants in the previous war.
The picture continues to flow.
Just as the red-haired boy was about to be engulfed by the flames.
A man wearing a black windbreaker, his eyes equally empty and desperate, appeared in the picture.
The man walked through the sea of ​​corpses and fire like a ghost.
Until he found the boy who was still breathing.
At that moment, the light in the man’s empty eyes rekindled.
It was a kind of… pure joy and relief that came from the heart.
“Great… I’m saved… Finally… I found someone…”
The man cried with joy. He trembled as he placed a scabbard emitting golden light into the boy’s body.
“Dad…”
Shirou Emiya looked at the man’s face in the picture, tears streaming down his face uncontrollably.
It was Emiya Kiritsugu.
It was his adoptive father who saved him from hell.
He would never forget the face that smiled at him in the firelight.
That was the only light in his life.
Saber, who was standing beside her, was completely stunned.
Her eyes were fixed on the golden scabbard implanted in the boy’s body.
“——Avalon (A Utopia Far Away from the World)!”
That’s her Noble Phantasm! It’s the strongest protective Noble Phantasm that protects King Arthur, can heal all wounds, and can even block all magic!
This Noble Phantasm should have disappeared with her departure after the Fourth Holy Grail War!
“I see…I see!”
Saber understood everything in an instant.
It was Emiya Kiritsugu! It was her previous Master who had left Avalon behind and used it to save this boy!
This is also why he was summoned by this half-baked magician boy!
Because within his body lies the holy relic that is most closely related to him!
Avalon… is the “fate” that connects her and Emiya Shirou!
“Kiri-ji-!”
When Illya saw Emiya Kiritsugu appear and save the boy with that gentle, treasured expression.
The innocence and curiosity on her face disappeared in an instant.
Instead, there was a cold hatred that was almost overflowing!
“You… betrayed me and my mother…”
“Just to…save this little stranger?!”
The sharp nails dug deep into the armrest.
The Berserker behind her, sensing the overwhelming wrath of his master, let out a deafening roar.
Emiya Kiritsugu and Irisviel stared blankly at “themselves” in the picture.
Looking at “myself”, I saw such a relieved smile.
“Kiritsugu…” Irisviel’s heart was gripped tightly.
She could read the meaning behind that smile.
It was a sad redemption that destroyed everything, lost everything, and finally grasped at a straw.
Emiya Kiritsugu clenched his fists.
He saw his future.
Failure, despair, but in the end… one person was saved.
In order to save this one person, did he give up his ideal of saving the world?
No……
The picture changed again.
[Scene switch: Moonlit courtyard]The red-haired boy, Shirou Emiya, who has grown up a few years, is sitting beside a haggard-looking man named Kiritsugu, who is nearing the end of his life, basking in the moonlight.
“When I was little, I wanted to be a partner of justice.”
Kiritsugu’s voice was filled with a sense of nostalgia.
“…Your childhood dream never came true?”
“Yeah, it’s a shame. Being a hero has a time limit. Once you grow up, it’s hard to call yourself a hero anymore.”
A peaceful smile appeared on Kiritsugu’s face.
He looked up at the moon.
“What a wonderful moon… Being looked at by a moon like this, I feel like I’m being redeemed…”
His head slowly lowered.
The breath of life is cut off.
The boy was stunned.
He reached out and felt the man’s breath.
Then, he used all his strength, held back his tears, and in a tone that was almost a declaration, he made his vow to the man who had passed away.
“Leave it to me, Dad.”
“I will inherit your dream!”
Under the moonlight, the boy’s thin back seemed to be carrying a dream that was heavy enough to crush the whole world.
Chapter 5: Self-harm training! Emiya Shirou, a lunatic with no talent! (Old version)
The oath made under the moon still seems to echo in everyone’s ears.
The boy in the picture carries his adoptive father’s heavy, naive, and almost impossible dream entirely on his thin shoulders.
The light curtain slowly dimmed and then lit up again.
Time began to pass rapidly.
[Scene switch: Empty warehouse]In the picture is the familiar warehouse.
The young Emiya Shirou was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed, veins bulging on his forehead.
He is “creating” the magic circuit.
In the stupidest, most primitive and most painful way.
Every time, it was like a red-hot iron rod was being branded into my nerves.
The severe pain caused his body to spasm uncontrollably, and cold sweat soaked his clothes.
fail.
The boy fell to the ground, gasping for breath, his vision blurred by the pain.
But he only rested for a moment before struggling to sit up again and repeating the self-mutilation behavior.
Once, twice, a hundred times, a thousand times.
Day after day, year after year.
There was no sound on the screen, only the young man struggling over and over again in silent pain.
In addition to creating circuits, he is also practicing “projection”.
He stretched out his hand, trying to form the shape of an object in his palm.
Mental power was being drained madly.
The magic dissipated in his hands.
Occasionally it would succeed, projecting a crooked object that would then turn into a point of light and disappear in the next second.
And every failure was accompanied by the excruciating pain that penetrated deep into the bone marrow caused by the operation of the magic circuit.
In the corner of the screen, a line of cold words slowly emerged.
[Without any talent, yet with a will of steel, he challenges the impossible.]“Don’t… don’t look…”
Emiya Shirou subconsciously looked away, his face burning.
If the past was “miserable”, what is revealed now is pure “embarrassment”.
That was his secret alone.
It was his most clumsy effort to catch up with the distant figure.
He didn’t want Saber to see him in this state of disarray, incompetence, and constantly hurting himself like a fool.
This almost completely destroyed the last bit of his dignity as a Master.
Saber stared at the light screen quietly, then glanced at the red-faced boy beside her.
Her eyes changed.
It was no longer pure pity, but a touch of… shock and respect.
Last night she thought that her Master was just a layman who knew nothing about magic.
Now she understood.
He is not completely ignorant.
He persisted for several years in a nearly self-destructive way!
That’s not a lack of talent.
That is a kind of… tenacious awareness that is enough to move any hero!
For an inherited dream, pain is commonplace and failure is seen as a necessary step.
This young man was far more… dazzling than she had imagined.
“Is this guy… an idiot?!”
When Toosaka Rin saw the scene on the screen, her blood pressure, as an elite magician, almost rose.
“Magic Circuits are innate! How can they be ‘created’ out of thin air this way?!”
“He’s committing suicide! Every failure permanently damages his nerves and magical foundation! Doesn’t he want to live?!”
Toosaka Rin simply couldn’t understand.
This is no longer the realm of “hard work”, this is pure stupidity! It is the most inefficient, painful and unrewarding self-destruction!
Can……
Why has this idiot been able to persist for so many years?
The patience to endure pain and the persistence in facing despair had reached a point that even made her feel terrified.
“Crazy… This guy is a complete lunatic…”
Her understanding of Shirou Emiya was once again completely overturned.
Irisviel looked at the boy who kept hurting her in the picture, her eyes filled with pity.
“He… has he been doing this kind of thing?”
“What you left him wasn’t a dream at all… it was a curse…”
She held Emiya Kiritsugu’s hand, and for the first time, she used a tone that was almost complaining.
Emiya Kiritsugu remained silent, not saying a word.
But in his heart, there was a huge storm.
Guilt.
The incomparable sense of guilt almost swallowed him up.
It’s him.
It was his “entrustment” before his death that led this young man, who should have grown up normally, to embark on such a thorny road.
He gave the boy an illusory ideal, but did not teach him any way to realize it.
So, this honest to the point of paranoid boy chose the most honest and cruel way to do it.
Use your own flesh and blood and pain to chase the phantom called “Companion of Justice”.
“Chuckle…”
When Illya saw this scene, she let out a crisp and cold laugh.
“So he’s a waste.”
“I thought that the person chosen by Kiritsugu must be some incredible genius.”
Her red eyes were filled with contempt and pleasure.
“How pitiful! For a false dream, you have hurt yourself so badly, just like a stupid dog trying to bite the moon.”
hatred.
Yes, her hatred became even deeper.
Kiritsugu, you not only abandoned me for an outsider.
You abandoned me, the Einzbern’s greatest masterpiece, and chose a… talentless waste!
This is the greatest insult to her, Illyasviel von Einzbern!
“Hahahaha! Funny! Really funny!”
King Gilgamesh, the hero, shook off his previous boredom and laughed out loud, clapping his hands.
“Using a mortal body, using the most foolish means, to challenge the realm of God! This stupidity, this recklessness, is simply the world’s top comedy!”
He didn’t appreciate the “effort”.
In his view, it was like an ant trying to shake the stars with its tentacles.
The struggle of ants is meaningless, but… the process is pleasing to the eye.
“Let me see how far you, a bug, can struggle!”
He became interested again and wanted to see how this farce would end.
The image on the screen changed again.
[Scene switch: Hogunhara Academy and Emiya family]The picture is no longer a warehouse of oppression.
But under the bright sunshine.
In the school, Shirou Emiya appears in every corner.
The air conditioner in the student union is broken.
“Leave it to me.” The boy smiled, took out the toolbox and fixed it in no time.
There was damaged equipment at the Kyudo Club’s training ground.
“Let me do this.” The young man silently repaired the things.
A classmate’s bicycle chain fell off.
“Don’t move, I’ll help you.” The boy skillfully put the chain back on.
He never turned down a request for help from anyone, no matter how trivial it was.
The scene changed again and came to the kitchen of the Emiya family.
The boy was wearing an apron and handling the ingredients skillfully.
In the evening, Fujimura Taiga came running over to have a free meal, and the table was filled with sumptuous Japanese cuisine.
The girl with a purple ribbon, Sakura Matou, always comes here, with a gentle smile, and helps him prepare dinner.
Under the warm lights, there are laughter and joy.
This home is filled with the flavor of life because of the presence of the young man.
In this way, day after day, he devotes his time and energy to all those in need.
Use your own hands to bring warmth and smiles to those around you.
Another line of text appeared on the light screen.
If you can’t save everyone, start by saving the one in front of you. The smiles of others are his only food.
“Isn’t this just an ordinary day? What’s there to take note of…”
Shirou Emiya felt even more embarrassed as he looked at these all-too-familiar scenes.
Fixing things, helping others, cooking…
These are things he does as a matter of course and are an integral part of his life.
He never thought it was anything special.
Saber, however, watched with great seriousness.
She looked at the picture and saw the boy’s heartfelt, satisfied smile on his face after helping others.
She finally connected everything.
In the warehouse, torturing myself with pain.
In the sunshine, heal others with dedication.
This young man is practicing the ideal he inherited in an extremely clumsy way.
His “partner of justice” is not just empty words.
Instead, it is the simplest truth that is integrated into every repair, every help, and every meal.
He…is confirming the value of his existence by “saving” others.
Just like she once did, by pulling out the sword from the stone, she gave up her life as “Altria” just to become “King Arthur”.
They are the same kind of people.
Toosaka Rin was silent.
She looked at the figure in the picture, Shirou Emiya, who smiled at everyone, and could no longer say words like “idiot” or “madman”.
She understood.
I understood the distorted and deformed logical loop behind this man’s seemingly contradictory behavior.
“I see……”
“You inherited the ideal of being a ‘companion of justice,’ but because you lack the power to do so, you can only continue to ‘play’ this role by helping those around you?”
“There is no ‘self’ in his life anymore.”
Toosaka Rin came to a conclusion that made her shudder.
Emiya Shirou is a hollow shell.
His joys, sorrows, anger, and all his actions are not for himself.
But to become the ideal container called “Partner of Justice”.
The satisfaction he gets from helping others is like the feedback signal a machine receives after completing an instruction.
Thinking of this, she looked at the warm smile in the picture again and felt indescribable awkwardness and emptiness.
Chapter 6: Fate/stay night! Shirou Emiya is shot through the heart by Lancer at the beginning! (Old version)
Illya looked at the scene on the screen where Shirou Emiya, Taiga Fujimura, and Sakura Matou were laughing and talking together.
Her little face sank little by little.
She saw the purple-haired girl.
“cherry……”
The sister who was supposed to belong to Einzbern and bear the same fate as her.
At this moment, he showed such a happy expression beside that “waste”.
Why?
How can this loser have family, friends and a warm daily life?
Why should he be able to enjoy the life with Sakura that should belong to me instead of me?
And I am trapped in this cold castle, with the monster called Berserker as my companion?
Resentment, jealousy, and anger.
All kinds of emotions, like poisonous snakes, gnawed at her little heart.
“Look, Kiritsugu, he’s a good boy.”
When Irisviel saw this scene, a relieved smile appeared on her face.
“Although… his methods are a bit clumsy, he is indeed trying hard to make those around him happy.”
“Isn’t this your original dream?”
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the screen with a complicated expression.
He saw his own shadow in the boy.
That kind of “damage” that can be consumed without a care for the happiness of others.
He thought that rescuing the boy from that hell would allow him to have a normal life.
As a result, he pushed him onto the same road as himself, which was full of wear and tear and consumption.
Did he save him, or… harm him?
For the first time, Emiya Kiritsugu began to waver in his actions.
“Hmph, boring.”
The Hero King Gilgamesh has completely lost his patience.
“Running for the bastards’ smiles, serving them like a cook and a servant.”
“Is this guy worthy of being called a ‘strong man’? It’s absolutely ridiculous!”
He couldn’t understand it, let alone agree with it.
A king is born to rule and plunder, to take all the good things in the world into his possession.
The way of life of this young man named Emiya Shirou is simply the opposite of the concept of “king”.
“That’s enough. I’m tired of this farce.”
He was just about to look away.
The image on the screen froze again.
It was in the Emiya family’s courtyard, late at night.
The boy had just finished his “daily routine” for the day and walked tiredly towards the warehouse where he had worked for several years.
A final line of text slowly emerged.
[Day after day, week after week.][Until… the fateful night arrives.]The words on the screen were like a death knell, foreshadowing the end of the boy’s ordinary daily life.
The picture moved in response.
In that familiar warehouse, Shirou Emiya had just finished his self-mutilation mage training.
He walked out of the warehouse, but felt an inexplicable palpitation.
It seems like something bad is happening in a place that he is familiar with.
As if possessed by a ghost, he picked up his coat and walked towards the school.
Under the cover of night, Hogunhara Academy was as quiet as a grave.
And in this tomb, two inhuman “ghosts” are fighting.
Archers in red and spearmen in blue fought frantically across the campus at a speed beyond human imagination.
Every collision stirs up a violent gust of magical power.
It was at this moment that Emiya Shirou rushed in.
He saw it.
I saw a battle that went beyond common sense.
In an instant, he was noticed by one of the “undeads” – the blue-clad spearman.
“—Unlucky brat, now that you’ve seen me, there’s nothing I can do.”
The cold words were accompanied by a blue shadow that was extremely fast.
Emiya Shirou’s brain couldn’t even comprehend what was happening.
He only saw a cold light enlarging before his eyes.
Then, a tearing pain came from his chest.
Phew——!
The bright red spear pierced his heart easily.
The picture gave a close-up of that moment.
The stunned and puzzled expression on the boy’s face, and the fatal hole in his chest from which blood continued to gush out.
“Well!”
Shirou Emiya suddenly covered his chest, the severe phantom pain almost suffocated him.
Dead.
He remembered.
In that corridor, he was indeed killed by that blue spearman!
The feeling of his vitality being drained away in an instant and his consciousness sinking into cold darkness once again swept over his whole body.
He subconsciously looked at Saber beside him, then looked at his own hands.
If it weren’t for the series of events that happened afterwards… I would have been a cold corpse now.
Saber’s brows furrowed tightly.
She looked at the blue spearman in the picture who killed without hesitation, and a hint of anger flashed in her green eyes.
“To attack an ordinary person who has no ability to resist… Is this the participant in this Holy Grail War?”
As the King of Knights, she despised such behavior.
What’s more, the person who was killed was her future Master.
A fear welled up in her heart that she herself hadn’t even noticed…
If this boy really died like that.
Then myself…
“Lancer——!”
Toosaka Rin screamed out loud.
Of course she recognized the blue lancer; that was the Servant who had fought with her Archer just yesterday!
And what he is doing now…
“Wait…am I not in school at this time?!”
Toosaka Rin reacted instantly, a chill running from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
She witnessed the entire process of Emiya-san being killed, but because of the distance and the fierceness of the battle between Servants, she was completely unaware!
That overly nice guy, that hopeless idiot…
Just like that, he died in a corner unknown to himself.
For a moment, regret, shock, and a trace of inexplicable guilt gripped her heart.
【Fuyuki City·Matou Family】
In the dark, depressing underground insect room filled with a foul smell.
Sakura Matou curled up in the corner, silently looking at the only light curtain in front of her.
The moment she saw Shirou Emiya’s heart pierced by a spear.
“–ah.”
A short and suppressed cry came from her throat.
The world seemed to have lost all its colors in an instant.
That light…
The only light in my life was extinguished.
“No…don’t…”
She unconsciously stretched out her hand, wanting to touch the figure lying in a pool of blood in the picture.
Buzz——!
Inside the body, the countless dormant imprinted worms began to squirm and gnaw frantically due to the host’s violent emotional fluctuations.
Torture more painful than the spear piercing through her in the picture erupted within her body.
But Sakura couldn’t feel it.
All her thoughts and feelings were immersed in the endless despair of her predecessor’s death.
“Oh, he’s dead.”
Illya looked at this scene, her tone as calm as if she was saying, “It’s a nice day today.”
“Killed by Lancer? Humph, trash is trash, and he died in such a pathetic way.”
She felt nothing about it and even felt a little dissatisfied.
She even hoped that it would be she, Berserker, who would personally crush and tear apart this “fake” that had taken Kiritsugu away.
Now, it’s really a bargain for him.
“Shirou!”
Irisviel let out a painful cry.
She covered her heart, unable to believe her eyes.
The good kid who inherited Kiritsugu’s dream, the good kid who tried to live his life and help others in his clumsy way…
Just… die like that?
Being so easily struck by a spear that came from nowhere…
In an instant, Emiya Kiritsugu’s eyes became the same as they were ten years ago, cold and empty.
He looked at the screen.
Looking at the child he had saved from hell, he once again fell in another pool of blood.
Holy Grail War.
He knew better than anyone the cruelty and ruthlessness of this ritual.
Witnesses must be cleared.
These are the rules.
Intellectually, he could understand Lancer’s behavior.
But emotionally…
A black flame called “anger” ignited in his heart, which had long been worn out by “justice”.
“oh?”
The corner of Hero King Gilgamesh’s mouth curled up into a cruel arc.
“Is it finally dead, this bug?”
“Cú Chulainn’s (Lancer) spear… well, it’s worthy of being in my collection.”
Far from showing any sympathy, he began to comment on the murderer’s weapon with great interest.
In his eyes, Shirou Emiya’s death was like an ant being run over by a car on the roadside, not worth mentioning.
But that’s not the end of the story.
The image on the light screen did not freeze.
Chapter 7: Toosaka Rin is dumbfounded: I prepared for seven years, and he was being hunted but he summoned Saber?! (Old Version)
[Turning point: Compassion from the “Excellent Student”]After Lancer left.
A figure stumbled over to Emiya Shirou’s body.
It’s Toosaka Rin.
She looked at Shirou Emiya, who had a big hole in his chest and had completely lost his life. His face was full of struggle and hesitation.
Finally, as if she had made up her mind, she took out a pendant emitting red light from her pocket.
That was the relic left to her by her father, the most precious amulet that she had accumulated over ten years of magic power, enough to serve as her “second life”.
“Really… I must be crazy! I’m actually doing this for a guy…”
She complained, but still placed the pendant on Shirou Emiya’s wound.
“…This is special. So, just live well, idiot!”
A huge amount of magical power erupted instantly.
After the red light, the fatal wound on the boy’s chest miraculously disappeared.
The heart that had stopped beating began to beat again.
“Tousaka…you saved me?”
Emiya Shirou looked at the scene in shock, then subconsciously touched his chest.
He only remembered that the wound on his chest disappeared after he woke up, and he thought it was a nightmare.
But he didn’t expect that it was the top student who always had a stern face towards him at school… Was it her who saved his life?
Moreover, he used something that… looked extremely valuable.
For a moment, he felt a mixture of gratitude, confusion, and more importantly, a sense of helplessness as if he “owed a huge favor.”
Saber’s gaze also fell on the pendant.
She could feel the immense and pure magic power contained within it.
“To pay such a precious magic crystal just to save a classmate you don’t even know…?”
She looked in the direction of Toosaka Rin, with a hint of approval in her eyes.
Regardless of the motive, this decisiveness and kindness are worthy of the name “Magician”.
“Aa …
Toosaka Rin looked at herself in the picture and wanted to find a hole in the ground to crawl into.
“Why?! Why did you use up such an important thing in such a rush of impulse?”
She hugged her head and squatted down in frustration.
That was a family heirloom that had accumulated ten years of magical power! It was her trump card to save her life in the Holy Grail War!
Just like that… wasted on an irrelevant idiot!
“It’s a huge loss… This time, I really lost everything!”
Although she said this, her cheeks were slightly hot.
In the underground insect room.
Matou Sakura stared blankly.
Watching the senior’s heart begin to beat again under the power of his sister, Rin Tousaka.
Hope was rekindled in the dead heart.
But what followed was something deeper and more painful…jealousy.
It’s my sister…
My sister again…
She is the excellent, dazzling sister who has everything and saved her senior.
And I…
I can’t do anything.
I can only be like this now, trapped in a dark corner, being eaten by insects, watching my predecessors die and then be resurrected by others.
The feeling of powerlessness, like a cancer attached to her bones, corroded her soul.
“Is she the daughter of the Tohsaka family…”
Irisviel looked at the screen and breathed a sigh of relief.
“What a good child. Completely different from her father…”
She exclaimed in sincere admiration.
Emiya Kiritsugu analyzed calmly.
“Using a gemstone imbued with immense magical power, a one-time resurrection of life, similar to the ‘Third Method’ of soul materialization…?”
“The cost was huge, but the judgment was decisive.”
His evaluation of Toosaka Rin instantly rose several levels.
A Master who has the ability and resources, and who, at critical moments, will break the magician’s routine because of the emotion of “pity”.
This kind of person is a more unpredictable variable than a cold-blooded and ruthless enemy.
The picture did not stop.
The resurrected Shirou Emiya returned home in a daze.
However, the murderous intention comes again!
The blue spearman appeared in front of him again!
“——You’re really tough, kid. Looks like I have to kill you again.”
A desperate hunt begins at home.
The boy was forced into a desperate situation and retreated to the warehouse where he trained day and night.
He picked up a reinforced poster scattered on the ground and tried to make a final resistance.
It was at this moment.
The magic circuits in his body were stimulated to the extreme because of his survival instinct!
On the ground, the long-forgotten summoning circle left behind by Emiya Kiritsugu ten years ago suddenly lit up due to the infusion of this magical power!
【Destiny’s Call: The Advent of the Star King】
The dazzling light swallowed everything!
In the light, a petite and majestic figure slowly solidified.
clang——!
The invisible sword accurately blocked Lancer’s fatal shot.
Under the moonlight, the girl was wearing a silver-blue knight’s skirt and armor, her golden hair swayed slightly, and her emerald eyes were like the purest lake.
She turned around and looked at the frightened boy behind her.
In a solemn and dignified tone, as if spanning aeons, he asked:
「——Ask Naru. Your side, private manaのマスターか」
(I ask you, are you my Master?)
【Multiple reactions】
At this moment, time seems to stand still.
In the warehouse of the Emiya residence, Emiya Shirou and Saber looked at themselves on the light screen, then looked at each other in front of them, and fell into a strange silence.
That was the starting point where their destinies intersected.
It is the beginning of all stories.
Toosaka Rin’s mouth opened into an “O” shape.
“It’s a lie… isn’t it?!”
“That idiot…actually…summoned Saber?! The most outstanding class?!”
She felt like her worldview was once again being pressed to the ground and rubbed repeatedly.
He had put in so much effort, prepared for seven years, and adjusted himself to the best condition, but in the end he summoned a disobedient Archer.
This half-baked fellow, while being hunted, casually…
This is illogical! This is not magic!
Sakura Matou looked at the majestic, beautiful and powerful female knight, and her back as she stood in front of her senior.
She bit her lips subconsciously.
Another one…
Another dazzling, powerful, and outstanding woman appeared beside the senior.
It seems like I and they are from two different worlds.
For the first time, Illya’s face revealed a truly cold murderous intent.
“Saber…”
It’s her.
He was the Servant who betrayed Einzbern together with Kiritsugu ten years ago.
“This time…I will definitely kill you.”
In the German castle, Irisviel smiled with nostalgia.
Emiya Kiritsugu frowned.
It was her again… the stubborn, idealistic Knight King.
Let Shirou…be her Master?
Is this a coincidence of fate, or… a malicious joke?
Even Gilgamesh, who had been watching the show, had a glimmer of real brilliance in his scarlet snake eyes for the first time.
“oh……?”
“This stinky bug actually called out the woman I’m attracted to?”
“Ha ha ha ha–!”
He laughed a delighted laugh.
“Good! Good! Good! This farce is finally worth watching!”
“Let me see what kind of tragicomedy you can perform this time!”
The actors of the Holy Grail War have already appeared.
And the real inventory has just begun at this moment.
The image on the screen slowly faded as Saber asked, turning into complete darkness.
Then, several lines of large gold-plated characters slowly emerged with an unprecedented sense of oppression.
【Inventory, officially begins.】
[Emiya Shirou’s vest: Guardian Heroic Spirit Emiya]Act I: An Ideal Beginning
Chapter 8: The End of Ideals! To Save Others, He Signs a Contract with the “World”! (Old Version)
The screen lights up.
It was no longer Fuyuki City, but a completely unfamiliar place filled with war and smoke.
A nuclear power plant is leaking, and red alarm lights are flashing wildly.
A red-haired young man who looked more mature than he is now, about twenty years old, was moving among them.
He didn’t use a fire hose or any specialized equipment.
Instead, he used his “projection magic”, which he had become extremely proficient in but was still not orthodox.
“TraceOn (projection, start)!”
He projected a huge, solid shield to block the collapsing wall, buying time for those inside to escape.
He projected a complex structure of cooling tubes to temporarily replace the damaged parts and delay the core’s meltdown.
His face and body were covered with scars and dirt.
The overuse of magic circuits caused his body to wail under the strain.
But he never stopped.
He even had that reassuring smile on his face, the same one he had in high school.
“It’s okay, we’ll be safe soon.”
He kept repeating this sentence, saving one life after another, a life he had never met before.
The narration on the light screen spoke slowly in an emotionless tone.
[Inheriting his adoptive father’s ideals, he embarked on the path of becoming a “partner of justice.”]He did not join any organization, but instead worked as a lone “scavenger” at disaster sites around the world.
[War, disaster, terrorist attacks… Wherever there is crying, there is his presence.][He is tireless and does not ask for anything in return, living only to save others.]“This… is me?”
Emiya Shirou was a little dazed for a moment when he looked at the mature, powerful self in the picture who was truly “saving others”.
Although it looks tiring and hard.
But… isn’t that what I have been pursuing and longing for all along?
He did it.
My future self really did become… “Zheng’s friend.”
An inexplicable excitement and yearning surged from the bottom of his heart.
Saber looked at the young man in the picture with an extremely complicated expression.
She saw it.
I saw how the young man fulfilled his oath under the moon with his own blood and bones, bit by bit.
That persistence and awareness made her feel extremely familiar.
Because that was exactly the path she had taken.
In order to become the “ideal king”, give up everything and devote everything.
“Shirou…”
She whispered her Master’s name.
At this moment, she finally completely overlapped the young man in front of her with the distant phantom called “ideal”.
“This…big idiot!”
Toosaka Rin looked at the screen, and although she was cursing, her eyes were flashing with unconcealable shock.
He…actually did it?
That naive, childish dream that I sneered at.
He actually, really, regarded it as his life path and walked along it step by step?
and……
“The precision and speed of this projection… is simply monstrous!”
She knew better than anyone how “low-class” Shirou Emiya’s magic was.
But the young man in the picture has mastered this only “low-level” magic to an incredible level!
What he projected was no longer a fake with only a good appearance, but a Noble Phantasm-level creation that was almost indistinguishable from the real thing and possessed real “strength”!
What a huge amount of training and what strong nerves does this require?
How cruel is this man to himself?
Sakura Matou stared at the light screen in a daze.
Look at that senior who saved others in the war.
His figure is still so gentle.
But, it is getting further and further away from me.
What surged in her heart was not pride, but panic that penetrated deep into her bones.
She doesn’t want her senior to become a hero who saves the world.
She only hoped that her senior could stay in that house like before, cook for her and smile at her.
That home is her only harbor.
But now, the light curtain was telling her.
The future of the predecessor does not belong to that family, nor to her.
He belongs to the whole world.
Belonging to those people whom she didn’t even know and who needed to be saved.
“He did it…Kiritsugu, he did it!”
Irisviel excitedly squeezed Emiya Kiritsugu’s hand.
“He’s living out your dream! He truly has…become a partner in justice!”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s body was trembling slightly.
Looking at that “son” who chose a completely different path from himself.
He is a magician killer who “does not hesitate to cut off the minority for the sake of the majority.”
Act in the dark and maximize results.
And Shirou…
But he is a goody-goody who is willing to sacrifice everything for the person in front of him.
Redemption in the sunshine, pursuing a flawless process.
Is this… a denial of one’s own path?
No.
This is an idealism that is purer than his own, but also more…stupid.
He knew what was at the end of this road.
It is endless consumption and endless self-wear.
In the end, there will only be a shabby ending.
The picture continues.
The footprints of young people are all over the world.
He prevented civil wars, saved refugees, and defused bombs…
The number of people he saved was increasing.
Ten, one hundred, one thousand…
However, he also encountered a desperate situation that he could never recover from by his own strength.
[Turning Point: Irreversible Tragedy]It was a nuclear reactor on the verge of going out of control.
Once it explodes, it will contaminate land within a radius of hundreds of kilometers and cause the deaths of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people.
When the young man arrived, it was too late.
All technical means have become ineffective.
He could only watch as the energy representing destruction continued to rise.
For the first time, he felt the despair called “powerlessness”.
A voice, a voice that did not belong to humans, but seemed to be the collective will of the entire “world”, sounded in his mind.
【——Want a “miracle”? 】
[——Do you want the power to save everyone here?]The young man raised his head.
【–Can.】
The voice continued.
[——In exchange, give me everything you have after your death.]In the picture, the young man looks at the civilians outside the reactor who are being evacuated without knowing anything about it.
He saw the fear on the child’s face and the mother’s tears.
He smiled.
Still the same as before, relaxed and gentle.
He gave his own answer to the voice.
“—Ah, I do.”
“Contract, established.”
A light that could not be described in words completely engulfed him.
The narration on the light curtain also made the final judgment at this moment.
[In order to save the lives of hundreds of people before him, he signed a contract with the “world”.][The price is to become a “guardian” in the afterlife, forever driven by the “restraint”…]【——Killing machine.】
Chapter 9: The End of a Hero! The End of the Ideal is to Become a “Killing Machine”! (Old Version)
When the four words “killing machine” were imprinted on the light curtain, the whole world seemed to fall into deathly silence.
Everyone who looked at these four words felt a chill that penetrated deep into their bones.
The end of a hero is not glory, but… becoming a weapon.
“Killing…machine?”
The color drained away from Emiya Shirou’s face in an instant.
“No…no…this isn’t right!”
He stood up suddenly from the ground like a cat whose tail was stepped on, and retorted excitedly.
“What I want is to be a ‘partner of justice’! To save others and make everyone happy! Not… not that kind of thing!”
Killing?
Isn’t that just like… those magi in the Holy Grail War who killed each other for their own selfish desires?
Isn’t that the same as… “all the evil in this world” that has taken the lives of countless people?
How could my future self…how could I become the person I least want to be?
The huge contradiction and self-denial, like an invisible hand, gripped his heart and made it almost impossible for him to breathe.
Saber looked at the boy who was almost emotionally broken, her eyes filled with endless compassion.
She understands better than anyone.
What does it mean to be a “Guardian”?
That is not becoming a god, but becoming the fuse of the sophisticated machine that is “the world”.
Wherever there is a risk of overheating, the fuse will be blown first.
Wherever there are signs of things getting out of control, be the first to eliminate them.
The so-called “cleansing” has only one method – killing.
To prevent the death of a thousand, kill a hundred.
To prevent the destruction of a country, a city was massacred.
This is the Guardian’s “justice”.
Cold, ruthless, only calculating the results, not the process.
For Shirou Emiya, whose only creed is “saving the person in front of him”, this is tantamount to the most vicious and cruel hell.
“……idiot.”
Toosaka Rin’s lips trembled slightly, and in the end, she only uttered these two words.
There was no longer any sarcasm or disdain in her voice.
Instead, there was a complex emotion mixed with anger and pity.
“You…a hopeless idiot!”
She knew the working principle of “Inhibition Force” better than Emiya Shirou himself.
That’s not a righteous partner at all.
It is the most ruthless system that can wipe out all “possibilities” without hesitation in order to maintain the survival of human nature.
Shirou Emiya, he bet his soul, but what he got in return was not the qualification to become a hero.
But… it is the “honor” of becoming the most convenient butcher knife of this ruthless system.
In the insect room.
Matou Sakura was trembling with fear.
Senior…will become…a killing machine?
The senior who was so gentle even to a stray cat.
The senior who would be sad all day long just because of the tragedy he saw on TV.
The only light in my heart, the only salvation…
In the future, will he become a… murderer?
She doesn’t believe it.
There must be something wrong.
This must be fake.
“Hehehe…hahahahahahaha!”
After a brief moment of surprise, Illya burst into laughter.
“Great! This is awesome!”
“The hero who pursued ‘justice’ ultimately turned into a ‘killing’ machine! What a wonderful irony! What a perfect ending!”
She clapped her hands, her red eyes sparkling with excitement.
This is ten thousand times more interesting than simply watching Shirou Emiya die!
She just wanted to see him betrayed by his own ideals, worn down and decayed bit by bit in endless contradictions and pain, until he completely collapsed!
This is the best revenge for Kiritsugu who betrayed her!
Emiya Kiritsugu’s body shook.
He stretched out his hand and held onto the wall behind him, barely managing to avoid falling.
“……ah.”
From his throat came meaningless syllables, like the wail of a wild beast.
it’s over.
it’s all over.
His “Kiritsugu no Do” was despised by the world, but he implemented it himself – slaughtering the minority in order to save the majority.
He had thought that rescuing Shirou from that hell would keep him away from this blood-stained path.
In the end, fate played a huge joke on us.
Shirou, having inherited his joking motto of “partner of justice”, ultimately embarked on the “Kiritsugu Way” which was purer and more cruel than his own.
He no longer needs to judge, choose, or bear the sins on his own.
The “world” will make all the judgments for him.
He only needs to, and can only… carry out the result of “killing”.
He, Emiya Kiritsugu, still had a choice.
And Shirou Emiya was deprived of even the right to choose.
“Ellie…”
He turned his head and looked at his wife.
Irisviel’s face was already soaked with tears.
She looked at her husband’s face, which seemed to have aged ten years in an instant, and felt extremely heartbroken.
She knows.
For Kiritsugu, this inventory was the cruelest public execution.
The light curtain didn’t give anyone time to breathe.
The title of a new chapter appeared on the dark screen.
Act II: The Guardian’s Reincarnation
It was a city full of exotic atmosphere. People were gathered in the square, listening to a leader’s speech.
They were excited and shouted war slogans.
A civil war that will engulf the entire country is about to break out.
And next to the square is the top of a tall tower.
The red-haired young man had changed into a black tight combat suit and a bright red holy cloth windbreaker.
His hair turned white.
His skin also turned dark due to the erosion of the magic circuit.
There was no longer any tenderness or confusion in his eyes.
All that was left was… dead silence, as cold as ice.
A large black bow appeared in his hand at some point.
He drew back the bowstring.
A twisted arrow, like a spiral sword, was placed on the string.
He didn’t even hesitate for a moment.
call out–!
The arrow, like a black lightning, crossed a distance of thousands of meters and accurately pierced the head of the leader who was giving a speech.
The square fell into dead silence in an instant.
Then, screams of terror broke out.
A war that had not yet begun was forcibly stopped in the most abrupt and coldest way.
The white figure on the top of the tower had long since disappeared.
Only one sentence is left, a narration without any emotion.
His first mission: To prevent tens of thousands of people from dying in future wars, he must kill the “source of war” right here, right now.
He saved tens of thousands of people.
He killed a man.
He didn’t save anyone.
Emiya Shirou stared blankly.
Looking at the white-haired, unfamiliar self, he used the bow, his best weapon, to carry out an… “assassination”.
His lips were trembling.
“Why… didn’t you stop it? Why… didn’t you communicate with them? Obviously… there should be a better way…”
“Why… kill him directly?”
This is completely contrary to what he believes in and insists on!
He couldn’t understand!
I can’t understand why that “self” has become so cold and cruel?
Saber fell silent.
She looked at the figure known as “Heroic Spirit Emiya” in the light curtain.
She could feel that the aura emanating from that person was that of a “heroic spirit” of the same kind as herself.
But the difference is.
There is not a trace of the “glory” of being a hero on him.
There is only the endless smell of blood and the exhaustion that penetrates deep into the bone marrow.
She suddenly understood.
Why does Rin Tohsaka’s Archer have such strong hostility towards Shirou?
because……
“Archer…”
Toosaka Rin subconsciously covered her mouth.
White hair, black skin, red clothes…
And that iconic projection magic and bow and arrow.
Although the temperament is completely different, but…
No doubt!
The “Heroic Spirit Emiya” on the light screen is the Servant he summoned – Archer!
turn out to be……
It turns out his real name is “Emiya”!
So he… is the future Emiya Shirou? !
This realization exploded in her mind like a thunderclap!
She figured everything out in an instant!
Why does Archer use projection magic!
Why does Archer know everything about Emiya Shirou!
Why does Archer have such deep hatred and disgust towards Shirou Emiya’s ideal of “wanting to be a partner of justice”!
The person he hated was not Emiya Shirou at all.
What he hated was his past self, the naive, stupid self who eventually pushed himself into an abyss of no return…
The picture flashes rapidly.
The figure of the Heroic Spirit Emiya appears in every corner of history.
On the medieval battlefield, he slaughtered the army of the victorious side and forcibly maintained the “balance of power”.
In a dystopian city of the future, he is killing the resistance leader who is about to awaken and may lead to world change.
He kills people.
kill.
He killed both evil people and good people.
There are men and women.
There are old people and children.
His hands were covered in blood.
His eyes became increasingly empty.
Until a scene appeared that was unexpected to everyone and made some people feel like they were falling into an ice cave.
[Among countless possibilities, he once faced such a choice…]The scene returns to Fuyuki City.
But it was a hellish scene.
The sky was shrouded in an ominous dark red.
On the ground, a huge black shadow was wriggling like a monster.
That is… the blackened Holy Grail.
And in the center of that shadow, stood a young girl.
She was wearing a dark gothic dress, and strange red lines appeared on her skin.
Her eyes were empty, yet emitting endless hatred and malice.
That is…
Matou Sakura.
Behind her, Saber had collapsed, covered in blood, and was swallowed by the black shadow.
Toosaka Rin’s magic power was exhausted and she lost her ability to fight.
The only one who can stop her is one person.
——Emiya Shirou.
At this time, one of his arms had been transplanted with Archer’s “Holy Shroud”, and his body was already at the end of its strength.
The narration on the light curtain gave the choice in a tone that was almost like a verdict.
[Choice 1: Save the one you love.][Consequences: Abandon the ideal of becoming a “partner of justice,” the world will be devoured by the Black Holy Grail, and human history will end here.][Choice 2: Implement the ideal of “Partners for Justice.”][Consequences: Killing the person you swore to protect, the one you love, with your own hands, to save the world.]In the picture, Shirou Emiya looks at the girl who has been polluted and is about to become “all the evil in this world.”
Looking at the one who cooked for him every day, smiled at him, and regarded him as her only support… Sakura.
Two lines of blood and tears flowed down his face.
He made…a choice.
“—I’m sorry, Sakura.”
He used up the last of his strength to project his strongest double swords – Gan Jiang and Mo Ye (Overedge).
Then, he launched a charge towards the girl he wanted to protect the most.
The blade pierced into the girl’s body.
The picture was frozen at that moment.
The astonishment and confusion on the girl’s face eventually turned into an expression of relief.
And the boy’s broken face, completely consumed by despair.
“Ah… …
A shrill, inhuman scream erupted from Sakura Matou’s throat.
What did she see?
I saw myself and became a monster.
He saw himself, hurting Saber, hurting his sister.
I saw…senior.
I saw my senior using the hands that cooked for me to thrust the blade into my chest.
The huge impact caused her consciousness to collapse instantly.
The imprinting worm in the body completely went berserk at this moment!
Darkness spread madly from under her feet!
But the next second, a dry hand pressed on the top of her head.
It’s Matou Zouken.
“Hehehe… Did you see that, Sakura?”
The old bug laughed happily.
“That ‘justice’ is so hypocritical and cruel.”
“In the end, he will still abandon you for those irrelevant people…”
Emiya Shirou’s knees gave way and he fell to the ground.
His pupils had lost focus.
“I… killed… Sakura…?”
impossible.
Absolutely impossible!
How could he possibly draw his sword against Ying?!
Didn’t I swear to protect her forever?!
Even if I have to make the whole world my enemy, I will definitely…
“vomit–!”
The intense feeling of nausea made him lie on the ground and retch violently.
He couldn’t accept it.
I can’t accept the future of myself doing such a cruel thing!
That ideal…
That ideal called “Partners of Justice”…
If it means killing Sakura…
That kind of thing…
Toosaka Rin stared blankly.
Looking at my sister, she has become like that.
Looking at Shirou Emiya, he made that… “correct” yet most “wrong” decision.
Her heart felt like it was being gripped tightly by a huge hand, and she felt so painful that she couldn’t breathe.
“Sakura… Shirou…”
For the first time, she began to waver in her belief in the “magician’s logic.”
Sacrifice the few for the sake of the many.
Is this really, correct?
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the light curtain.
Looking at that “son” who made the same choice as himself.
That year, on the plane, in order to prevent the spread of the virus, he shot and killed his adoptive mother (Natalia) with his own hands.
Now, in order to prevent the Holy Grail from being contaminated, Shirou has killed his beloved (Sakura) with his own hands.
Fate.
This damn fate is like a curse!
He could no longer hold on and a mouthful of blood spurted out.
Illya couldn’t laugh anymore.
She looked at the grief-stricken Shirou Emiya in the picture.
She suddenly felt… a little dull.
What she wants to see is the fall of the hero.
But now, what she saw was just a poor guy who was driven into despair by his ideals and had to destroy everything with his own hands.
Chapter 10: Death of a Hero! I saved the world, but the world sent me to the gallows! (Old version)
【Winter-Wood City·Unknown High-rise】
“Haha …
Different from the heaviness, sadness and despair of everyone else.
The Hero King Gilgamesh let out the most exhilarating and joyful laugh ever!
“Supreme! This is truly a supreme tragedy!”
“To kill one’s beloved for the sake of one’s ideals! This pain! This contradiction! This despair! It’s truly… wonderful!”
He looked at the collapsed boy in the picture, as if he was admiring a perfect work of art carved out of endless pain.
“Emiya Shirou! The King recognizes you!”
“Your existence is no longer a boring farce! Instead, it is the best toy that can bring this king the ultimate pleasure!”
The light curtain continues.
After killing Sakura with his own hands, the look in the Heroic Spirit Emiya’s eyes was completely dead.
He continued his mission as a guardian.
Killing, killing, endless killing.
Until his final battle.
Hero’s End: Betrayal
He intervened in a dispute that was about to escalate into a world war.
He single-handedly mediated between the two major camps and ultimately, miraculously facilitated the signing of a peace agreement.
He thought that he had finally… truly “saved” the world.
However, just after the agreement was signed.
At the moment when he was most relaxed.
The humans from the two camps that he saved, however, turned their attacks against him at the same time out of fear of the inhuman power of “Heroic Spirit Emiya”.
The noose was placed around his neck.
He did not resist.
He just raised his head and looked at those people who were saved by him, but whose faces were now filled with fear and hatred.
It was a smile of relief, filled with endless irony and exhaustion.
“Ah… I see…”
“‘Companions of Justice’, that’s what it is.”
He closed his eyes.
In betrayal, he faced his ultimate death as a “human being”.
After death, his soul was recovered by the “world”.
Completely degenerated, without a self, only able to execute killing orders in an eternal cycle…
Heroic Spirit—Emiya.
In the picture, the white-haired man is on the gallows, leaving behind his last words as a “human being”.
There was no anger or resentment in those words.
There is only endless irony and complete…relief.
He saved the world.
The world killed him.
What a fair deal.
He slowly closed his eyes, his body swaying weakly in the air, completely losing his life.
A man who pursued “justice” all his life, eventually died at the hands of the “justice” he guarded.
Shirou Emiya, kneeling on the ground, had stopped shaking.
He just… stared blankly.
Looking at myself, the lonely self who has been betrayed by the whole world.
It turns out that this is the ending.
It turned out that the dream that he inherited from his father, the one he cherished so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything for it…
From beginning to end, it’s just a joke.
A cold joke written with one’s own blood, tears, pain, and even life.
“……Oh.”
A meaningless, dry laugh squeezed out of his throat.
He didn’t know what he was laughing at.
Perhaps, he was laughing at his future self.
Or perhaps, he was laughing at himself, the naive and foolish one who still believed in it.
Saber stretched out her hand, trying to support the staggering boy beside her, but her hand stopped in mid-air.
An unprecedented rage burned in her chest.
That anger was not directed at the betrayer.
But towards that damn “fate”.
Why does everyone who raises a sword to protect others end up being betrayed?
Why is it that every act of selfless dedication ultimately only results in the most excruciating pain?
She looked at the dead man on the screen, as if she saw her own reflection lying on Camlann Hill.
They carry the same ideals.
Also ushered in the same…end.
“Bastards… a bunch of hopeless bastards!”
Toosaka Rin’s teeth were chattering.
Her anger had reached its peak.
She was angry at the ignorant people who had been saved but turned around and executed the hero.
I was even more angry at that big idiot who didn’t defend himself or even resist until the very end!
“Why didn’t you resist?! Why didn’t you kill them?! You clearly have that kind of power!”
She growled like an irritated cat.
But after yelling, she lowered her head weakly.
She knew why.
Because, he is “Emiya Shirou”.
Because, he is the “comrade of justice” who is willing to kill even his loved ones in order to protect humanity.
Therefore, he would never wield the butcher knife against the “human beings” he protects.
Even if those people wanted to kill him with their own hands.
Sakura Matou looked at the cold corpse on the light screen.
She didn’t cry.
He just watched quietly with an almost numb, empty look in his eyes.
look.
This is the “reward” you get after choosing the “world” and abandoning me.
world……
And abandoned you.
A sick, twisted pleasure and a sadness deep in her bones intertwined in her heart at the same time.
She couldn’t even tell whether she wanted her senior to be saved or to be abandoned by the whole world.
Because, that’s the only way.
Only when the whole world abandons him.
Only he could possibly belong to her alone.
Emiya Kiritsugu slowly closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to watch anymore.
That’s enough.
This road called “Partners of Justice” has been a one-way road to hell from the very beginning.
I lost everything on this road.
He went further than me, but also… fell harder.
“I was wrong… Ellie…”
He spoke to his wife beside him in a tone that was almost confessional.
“From the very beginning… I was wrong…”
I shouldn’t have said those things to him.
I shouldn’t have passed this damn “curse” to him personally.
Irisviel said nothing, but stretched out her hand and hugged her husband tightly, a scarred man who had been tortured by his ideals all his life.
Everyone thought so.
The story should end here.
The hero is dead and the tragedy is over.
However.
At this moment, the light screen displayed a line of words that made everyone feel creepy.
【Death is not the end.】
【But…it’s the beginning of service.】
What?!
Everyone’s pupils suddenly shrank!
Just see, in the picture.
The body of the hanged, white-haired man began to turn into countless golden points of light and slowly dissipated.
His soul, separated from his body, was forcibly taken away by an irresistible force from a higher dimension.
The scene changed.
It is a chaotic space that cannot be described in words.
Countless heroes sleep here.
This is the “Seat of Heroes”.
However, that white-haired soul is not qualified to stay here.
He was thrown directly into a deeper and colder “system” by that power.
——”Alaya-vijnana” is the collective unconscious self-defense device of human beings.
【Contract, fulfilled.】
[From now on, you will become the hand of restraint, exercising violence to control things.]【There is no beginning, and no end.】
【Until the end of this world.】
The words fell.
The white-haired heroic spirit was once again “deployed”.
It was a future battlefield filled with lasers and artillery fire.
He opened his eyes blankly, looked at his hands, and then looked at the unfamiliar environment around him.
There was still trace of exhaustion and irony in his eyes when he was executed.
But soon, instructions from the “world” flooded into his mind.
[Target: Three kilometers ahead, the core figure at the “Historical Crossroads.”]【Mission: Obliterate.】
He was silent for a moment.
Then, the huge black bow appeared in his hand again.
He drew his bowstring.
Act III: Eternal Nothingness
The picture began to jump wildly at a dizzying speed.
Every jump is a new era and a new battlefield.
Every time he appears, he is carrying out the same mission – to eliminate.
He appeared at the Colosseum in ancient Rome and shot the nobles who were about to initiate a coup.
He appeared in London during the Industrial Revolution and eliminated mad scientists who might have caused the technology tree to go astray.
He appeared on an interstellar colonization spacecraft and cleared out the crew members carrying alien viruses.
He kills.
once.
A hundred times.
Thousands of times.
Ten thousand times.
…billions of times.
Time has lost its meaning to him.
Space is just the coordinates of his mission location.
At first, there was still pain and conflict in his eyes.
Afterwards, all that was left in his eyes was disgust and hatred.
Later, even the hatred disappeared.
His eyes began to become… empty.
Like a pool of stagnant water.
Like a stone.
Like a piece of pure nothingness with nothing in it.
Several close-ups were given on the screen.
He mechanically drew the bowstring.
His eyes were blank.
He watched expressionlessly as his target turned to ashes in front of him.
He was sitting alone on top of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, looking up at the scarlet sky (mental landscape) that would never change.
His eyes were still blank.
Joy, anger, sadness, happiness…
All the emotions belonging to “human beings” have been worn out in the eternal cycle.
He was no longer Emiya Shirou.
He is not even “Heroic Spirit Emiya” anymore.
He’s just a code name.
A trigger.
A soulless… puppet named “Guardian”.
The narration on the light curtain also made its final and cruelest conclusion at this moment.
He wanted to save everyone.
【In the end, even I was left with nothing. 】
【Final reaction】
Emiya Shirou slumped on the ground.
He looked at his future self, whose eyes were as empty as the abyss.
He suddenly realized that he didn’t even have the strength to retch.
despair.
It was a kind of pure despair that went beyond pain and sadness.
It was like being thrown into a black hole with no light, no sound, and no end.
Can only, continuously, continuously, fall.
Hell is not death.
Hell is… never-ending, living.
Saber’s hand, holding the invisible sword, was shaking constantly.
She has seen countless heroes and heard countless tragedies.
However, no ending is more cruel than the one before us.
When a hero dies in battle, his soul returns to Valhalla, where he can still retain the glory and will he had in life.
His future fate is to be deprived of his will, his soul destroyed, and become an eternal slave…without even his “self”.
“This…is not heroic.”
She whispered in a voice that was almost dreamy.
“This… is blasphemy.”
It is the most vicious insult to the word “hero”.
Toosaka Rin could no longer maintain her pride as an excellent student.
She covered her face, not wanting to look anymore.
But that curtain of light mercilessly seared the image into her mind.
She finally understood.
I understand where Archer’s twisted personality, which is deeply rooted in his bones, comes from.
That’s not just cynicism.
That was the last and only bit of obsession that was born in the endless nothingness, belonging to the “self”.
That obsession is——
“—To kill my past self with my own hands, to end this endless nightmare.”
Matou Sakura looked at the confused figure.
For some reason, the fear, jealousy, and resentment in her heart…all slowly faded away at this moment.
All that is left is endless, endless…heartache.
“……senior.”
She stretched out her hand, across the vast distance, wanting to touch that empty shell that had lost its soul.
“That’s… enough.”
“You no longer have to be a hero.”
“Come back…”
The smile on Illya’s face completely disappeared.
What she wanted to see was Shirou Emiya’s pain, his struggle, and his despair.
But, what she saw now was a “thing” that could no longer even feel pain and despair.
This made her feel… extremely irritated.
It’s like punching cotton, no pleasure at all.
Even beneath that irritability, there was a hint of fear that she herself had not even noticed.
The instinctive fear of the fate of “losing oneself and becoming a tool”.
Germany.
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the future Shirou, whose eyes were even emptier and more dead than his own.
He suddenly smiled.
Smiling is uglier than crying.
“…I see.”
“I lost.”
He lost to fate.
Lost to ideals.
The defeat was complete and utter.
And above the tall buildings.
Gilgamesh, the heroic king, has always regarded all of this as a “top comedy”.
At this moment, he also put away his playful smile.
His scarlet snake eyes stared at the dazed figure on the screen and he fell into a long silence.
What he hated was the “ignorance” of the “bastards”.
What he enjoyed was the “struggle” of the “bastard”.
But, this thing in front of me…
Neither foolish nor struggling.
It just… exists.
A powerful weapon that has lost its “self-will” and only has “function” left.
This touched upon the most fundamental weakness of Gilgamesh, the “oldest king.”
The reason why a king is a king is because he possesses an absolute “self”.
However, the heroic spirit before him was the complete opposite of his “self”.
“…a dull fake.”
He finally uttered this comment coldly.
“No, not even a fake.”
“You are just a person who is not even qualified to be collected into my treasury…”
“—scrap metal.”
Chapter 11: A parallel world opens! Kiritsugu here actually wants Shirou to “sacrifice his sister” to save the world! (Old version)
On the light curtain, the empty, dead eyes of the heroic spirit Emiya were like a bottomless abyss, swallowing up everyone’s mind.
He had wanted to save everyone.
In the end, not even I was left.
This cold verdict, like an epitaph, put an extremely ironic end to the man who pursued his ideals all his life.
The world fell into a long silence.
Whether in every corner of Fuyuki City or in the ancient castle far away in Germany, everyone was shrouded in this heavy and suffocating despair, and was speechless for a long time.
The end of a hero is not to die on the battlefield or to return home in glory.
Instead, it was worn down into a killing doll without emotion, without will, and with only “function” left.
This is ten thousand times more cruel than any other form of death.
In the warehouse of the Emiya residence, Shirou Emiya was still slumped on the ground, his pupils had lost focus, as if his soul had been completely drained by the monster called “Future”.
“……it’s over.”
He muttered to himself.
It turns out that this is the end of “Partners of Justice”.
It turns out that everything I long for will ultimately lead to eternal nothingness.
Saber stood beside him, her fingers gripping the invisible sword white from excessive force. Anger and sorrow mingled within her, yet she didn’t know how to comfort the young man beside her, whose future had been completely shattered.
At the Tohsaka residence, Tohsaka Rin covered her face, her shoulders trembling slightly. She couldn’t imagine the endless pain that guy who always wore a nice smile would have to endure in the future.
This is no longer a tragedy, but the most vicious curse on the word “ideal”.
In this oppressive silence, the golden light curtain slowly lit up again.
The pitch-black background, along with the figure of the Heroic Spirit Emiya, disappeared.
Instead, there is a new line of gold-plated characters that seem to be opening a whole new chapter.
【Inventory, continue.】
[Second Inventory Subject: Shirou Emiya (Parallel World Coordinates: No. ███)]Here we come!
Everyone’s mind was forcibly pulled back to the light curtain again.
Or Emiya Shirou? !
But… is it a parallel world?
What kind of story would that be? Would it be even worse than the Heroic Spirit Emiya’s, or would it have a slightly better ending?
Nobody knows.
But everyone couldn’t help but feel a faint hope in their hearts, a hope that even they themselves couldn’t believe.
It was not the familiar sea of ​​fire, nor was it the peaceful daily routine.
Instead, it was a scene like the end of the world.
[Screen opens: Sky’s Reverse Moon]Fuyuki City.
However, it is a Fuyuki City that is extremely unfamiliar to everyone.
The sky was a dead gray.
In the center of the city, there was a dark pit that was so huge that it was beyond imagination. It was like a scar on the earth, tearing the ground apart hideously.
From that pit, ominous, frightening magical residue continued to emanate.
Everything around, high-rise buildings, houses, streets… all traces of human civilization were reduced to dust in this disaster.
Looking around, everything was devastated and dead silent.
It seems as if a piece of the whole world has been hollowed out here.
And on this ruin that looks like a picture of hell, a figure is standing alone.
He was a red-haired boy who looked to be in his early teens.
His eyes didn’t have the blankness of Shirou Emiya in the main world, nor the dead silence of Emiya in the Heroic Spirit.
Some are complex, a mixture of perseverance, pain and numbness that is inconsistent with age.
[Screen text: World coordinates: No. ███, a parallel world where “saving the world” has completely failed.][Onscreen text: During the Fourth Holy Grail War, magical power ran rampant, the Greater Holy Grail itself was destroyed, the earth’s veins dried up, and this place has become a barren land.]Chain Reaction: Prelude to Destruction
The moment Emiya Shirou saw this scene, his pupils suddenly contracted!
“This…this is also…Fuyuki City?!”
He cried out in surprise.
The scene before him was a hundred, a thousand times more terrifying than the sea of ​​fire in his memory!
Fire only burns down buildings.
However, the huge pit in the picture has dug out the earth and existence itself!
That lonely boy who looked exactly like him made him feel a chill from the bottom of his heart.
“Saber…what is that?” he asked subconsciously.
Saber’s expression was more solemn than ever before.
“It’s the Greater Grail…it’s out of control.”
Her emerald eyes fixed on the giant pit, and she spoke in a deep voice, “This world’s Fourth Holy Grail War ended in an outcome countless times more tragic than ours. Not only did the Masters and Servants fail to obtain the Holy Grail, but… they were destroyed by it.”
She could clearly feel that the remaining magic power was filled with the breath of “all the evil in this world”.
But the difference is that this aura seems to have merged with the entire space.
“Are…are you kidding me?!”
Toosaka Rin suddenly stood up from her seat, her face full of disbelief!
As the manager of Fuyuki City’s spiritual vein, she knows the location of the giant pit and what it means better than anyone else!
“Enzosan…under the basement of Ryudo-ji Temple! These are the physical coordinates of the Greater Holy Grail!”
Her voice was trembling.
“It was…destroyed at its root?! The entire spiritual vein’s core was…blown away?!”
This was beyond the scope of magic she could understand!
This is the destruction caused by the pure flow of energy that is comparable to the “magic” level!
“What exactly happened during this world’s Fourth Holy Grail War? What kind of monsters are my father and his men fighting?!”
An unprecedented fear gripped her heart.
In the luxurious room, the innocence on the face of the silver-haired Illyasviel completely disappeared for the first time.
She looked at the huge pit, her red eyes narrowed slightly.
“…a failure.”
She uttered the word in a cold tone.
“This world’s Einzbern was even more useless than I imagined. Not only did it fail to activate the Greater Holy Grail, it actually backfired on them.”
She had no sympathy for this.
But the “sense of doom” that seeped out from the screen, as if the entire world was heading towards death, made her feel instinctively and extremely unhappy.
Her eyes fell on the red-haired boy.
“You again… Why do you exist in every world?”
“——!”
The moment Emiya Kiritsugu saw the huge pit, his body suddenly tensed up and his pupils contracted to the extreme!
What’s this?
This is the final result of my quest for the Holy Grail?!
No…that’s not right!
The worst outcome he imagined was that the black mud in the Holy Grail would overflow and cause a huge fire.
And what was before him… was complete destruction! It was a natural disaster that wiped the entire city off the map!
It was the “Emiya Kiritsugu” of this world who pulled the trigger in the name of “saving the world”, but in the end, fired the bullet that destroyed the world!
“Ah…ah…”
Meaningless syllables emanated from his throat, a self-denial more cruel than any torture, almost crushing his sanity.
“Kiritsugu!”
Irisviel felt her husband’s collapse, and she hugged him tightly from behind, her face full of fear and tears.
“No…that’s not you! Kiritsugu, you won’t let this happen!”
She could feel that her husband’s heart, which had long been frozen, was cracking inch by inch.
In the dark insect room, Sakura Matou curled up in the corner.
She couldn’t understand what spiritual veins were, nor could she understand what the Holy Grail was.
All she saw was a ruin that was even more despair than where she was.
And the “senior” who was standing alone in the middle of the ruins.
His back looks so lonely and so thin.
It feels like being abandoned by the whole world.
In that instant, Sakura’s heart seemed to be tugged at by something.
“senior……”
She stretched out her hand, wanting to touch the light curtain, wanting to warm the figure that looked even sadder than herself.
“Huh, that’s really ugly.”
Hero King Gilgamesh shook his wine glass, his face full of undisguised contempt.
“Without my rule, the only thing these bastards can do is to destroy their own garden into a garbage dump?”
He has no feelings about human death.
He was only unhappy with this “ugliness”.
However, he also developed a slight interest in the power that caused all this.
“Being able to manipulate the Holy Grail to the point of self-destruction… is quite a feat. I just don’t know which blind idiot defiled this treasure that rightfully belongs to me.”
His eyes fell on the young man.
“And you… a bug living in a garbage dump, what kind of farce will you stage?”
Just as everyone was overwhelmed by this doomsday-like scene, the scene changed.
Time seems to have moved forward a little.
Heavy snow falling.
Cover this dead land with pure white.
[Scene switch: Encounter on a snowy night]In a dilapidated alley that was half buried in snow.
The red-haired boy, Emiya Shirou, was walking with one foot deep and one foot shallow.
Suddenly, he stopped.
At the end of the alley, a small figure was curled up there, almost swallowed by the heavy snow.
She was a little girl with purple hair, wearing thin clothes and shivering all over.
Shirou was stunned.
In this ruin where there is no sign of life anymore, there is actually… a living person?
Without hesitation, he walked quickly forward, took off the only thick coat on his body, and gently put it on the little girl.
The little girl raised her head, revealing a face as delicate as a doll, and a pair of lifeless, amethyst-like eyes.
——She is Miyu.
The screen jumps again.
Arrived at the familiar yet extremely dilapidated Emiya family mansion.
Emiya Kiritsugu in this world has reached the end of his life.
He lay on the sickbed, his face haggard, but his eyes were still as sharp as an eagle, or rather… cold.
Shirou, and the girl he rescued, Miyu, stood quietly by his bed.
Kiritsugu’s eyes were not looking at Shirou, but were fixed on Miyu.
That’s not the way you look at a “person”.
Rather, he is like a craftsman examining the most perfect “tool” that he has been searching for his entire life and finally got.
He panted, and with his last bit of strength, he gave the final “instructions” to his only adopted son.
“—Shirou, I found her.”
His voice was hoarse, but full of unquestionable determination.
“She… is the complete form of the Holy Grail, the Child of God, a miracle that can fulfill all wishes.”
“It’s me… it’s us, the last hope to realize our ideals.”
Kiritsugu’s gaze finally shifted from Miyu to Shirou’s face.
“I… don’t have time anymore.”
“So, you have to take my place.”
He stretched out his withered hand and pointed at Miyu.
“——Use her to save this hopeless world.”
“No matter…whatever the cost.”
[Onscreen text: Final entrustment: Sacrifice “sister” to save the world.]“Dad…what…is he talking about…?”
What did he hear?
Use…her?
cost?
That man who looked exactly like his father actually…actually called that weak and pitiful-looking girl “hope” and “tool”?!
This is completely different from the warm dream he inherited, which was to “become a partner of justice”!
This is not a dream at all!
This is… a curse!
Just like those magicians in the Holy Grail War, they wantonly exploit others to achieve their own goals. It’s a cold… sin!
“No…that’s not right…Dad…he’s not that kind of person!”
He retorted passionately, as if trying to convince himself.
Saber looked at the young man beside her whose emotions were almost out of control, then looked at the man with cold eyes in the picture. Undisguised anger and disgust ignited in her emerald pupils.
“……monster.”
She said in a cold voice.
“For his own illusory ideals, he actually used an innocent child as a tool to fulfill his wishes… This man doesn’t even deserve to be called a ‘human’!”
She thought of Merlin, and of those magicians who manipulated people’s hearts and used whatever means necessary for the “future of Britain.”
The Emiya Kiritsugu in front of him was exactly the same as them.
Toosaka Rin was stunned.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
As a magician, she could understand.
She could understand this extreme rationality of viewing everything as a “means” in order to explore the root cause and achieve a grand goal.
This is the norm for countless magicians.
Even her father, Tōsaka Tokiomi, was such a person to some extent.
but……
When she saw with her own eyes a father defining a child as a “tool” in such a straightforward and cruel way, a strong sense of physical discomfort surged in her heart.
“……madman.”
“This guy is simply a complete lunatic who is poisoned by his ideals.”
For the first time, she began to doubt the inevitable cruelty of the “magician’s world” she lived in.
Chapter 12: Jin Shanshan’s approval: This is more like it! Much better than that idiot who talks about justice all the time! (Old version)
The expression on Illya’s face froze.
A moment ago, she was still jealous of why Kiritsugu was so “partial” to the girl named Miyu.
And at this moment, she understood.
That’s not favoritism.
That was… an even more blatant and ruthless exploitation than that of myself!
She laughed, her laughter was crisp but full of coldness.
“So, in his eyes, we are just ‘tools’.”
I am the “Little Holy Grail” that carries the hope of the Third Law.
And that girl is the “wishing machine” that can save the world.
They are not “daughters”.
They are not family members who need to be loved and cared for.
They were merely… tools used by Einzbern and Emiya Kiritsugu to realize their respective dreams.
At this moment, her hatred for Kiritsugu not only did not diminish, but became even deeper and more…pure.
“No…no…no!!!”
Irisviel screamed in agony, shaking her head frantically, tears streaming down her face like a flood.
“That’s not you! Kiritsugu! That’s not you!!”
She couldn’t accept it!
She couldn’t accept that the husband who would hold her awkwardly and smile tenderly in front of her would turn into the one in the picture, with eyes as cold as iron, who treated a child as a mere tool… a machine!
Emiya Kiritsugu’s body was shaking violently.
He looked at the person in the picture, who had made the same choice as himself – no, it was “himself” who was more extreme and more resolute than himself.
He didn’t speak.
Because he couldn’t refute it.
Because he knew, if… if he hadn’t met Airi, hadn’t met Shirou, hadn’t been “saved” by that despair in that fire.
Then, it is really possible that I will become like the person in the picture.
For the sake of that damn ideal called “saving the world”, he wore away the last bit of humanity and regarded everything as gears and parts, including… his own son and innocent children.
An unprecedented self-loathing that penetrated deep into his bones almost swallowed him whole.
Sakura Matou looked at the purple-haired girl in the picture who was defined as a “tool” and a “sacrifice”.
She subconsciously hugged herself tightly.
The imprinted worm in the body seemed to sense the host’s fear and began to wriggle slightly.
tool……
Offerings…
These words were so familiar to her.
When she looked at the girl named Miyu, it was as if she saw herself, the one who was sent into this hell by her own father many years ago.
A strong resonance and sadness made her almost breathless.
She began to fear.
Fear of the “senior” who was raised under such cold philosophy.
What will become of him?
Will he… also become cold-blooded and heartless like the people of the Matou family?
“Oh? Hehe…hahahahahaha!”
In stark contrast to the heaviness and pain felt by everyone, the Hero King Gilgamesh laughed joyfully.
“Interesting! Really interesting!”
His scarlet snake eyes flickered with excitement.
“Compared to the idiot in the last inventory who talked all about ‘justice’ but couldn’t even save himself, this ‘Emiya Kiritsugu’ is more like a proper ‘king’!”
He couldn’t understand such a boring ideal as “saving the world”.
However, he could understand this extreme “self” that would treat everything as a tool in order to achieve its own goals at any cost!
“Sacrificing children and using adopted sons as blades to pry open the chessboard called ‘the world’… Humph, although the methods are crude, this is your determination, and I recognize it!”
He watched the screen with great interest, wanting to see how sharp the “blade” created by this cold machine – the Shirou Emiya of that parallel world – would be.
“Come, let me see what you, having inherited this curse, can actually cut off, you bastard!”
On the light curtain, Emiya Kiritsugu from that parallel world completely lost his life after leaving behind his cold “last words”.
He is dead.
He died on the road called “saving the world” which he never gave up until his death.
And his curse, or “ideal”, was completely inherited by the young red-haired boy.
The picture begins to flow.
Time is passing by rapidly.
[Scene switch: Disguise called “family”]Above the ruins of Fuyuki City, wisps of smoke rose from the only relatively intact Japanese-style house.
In the kitchen, the red-haired boy, Emiya Shirou, was wearing an apron and skillfully preparing breakfast. His movements were almost identical to those of Emiya Shirou in the main world.
“Miyu, it’s time to get up, or you’ll be late for school.”
His voice was still so gentle, as if it could dispel the chill of this doomsday world.
The purple-haired little girl with twin ponytails, Miyu, rubbed her sleepy eyes and sat obediently at the dining table.
On the table was steaming miso soup and grilled fish.
After breakfast, Shirou would hold Miyu’s hand, walk through the dead ruins, and take her to the only functioning school in the city.
In the afternoon, he would go to work to earn money to support this “family”.
In the evening, he would pick up Miyu and take her home, prepare a sumptuous dinner for her, and help her with her homework.
Late at night, he would sit under the corridor of the courtyard and practice over and over again the half-baked strengthening magic that the man taught him.
On the surface, they look like an ordinary pair of siblings who depend on each other after the apocalypse.
Warm, peaceful and full of the flavor of life.
At this moment, the light curtain ruthlessly pulled closer to Emiya Shirou’s face.
Gave him a close-up of his inner thoughts.
As he tucked Miyu into bed and looked at her peaceful sleeping face, a cold voice echoed in his mind: “Confirmed that the ‘Holy Grail’ is in good condition and functioning normally.”
When he saw Miyu making friends at school and smiling happily, his heart remained calm, and he simply calmly assessed: “The stable emotional module is conducive to the stable output of ‘miracles’.”
As he held her hand and walked through the ruins, he felt not warmth but confirmation: “The ‘tools’ are at hand, and the mission is underway.”
Hidden beneath his gentle smile is Emiya Kiritsugu’s extremely cold logic.
Everything he did was not out of “love”.
But for “maintenance”.
Protect this ultimate “weapon” called “Meiyu” that can save the world.
However……
Occasionally, when I see Miyu jumping for joy over a small gift.
When he was sick, Miyu clumsily tried to cook for him.
As he tiredly practiced magic, Miyu put a coat on him.
His heart, frozen by his “ideals”, would uncontrollably develop a crack.
A trace of hesitation that even he himself wanted to ignore.
[Onscreen text: Fake daily life: caught between “family” and “props.”]Shirou Emiya felt as if he was falling into an icy cave when he looked at himself in the picture, who was living a “double life”.
“……how so……”
The gentleness of that “self” is real.
The smile of “myself” is real.
But hidden beneath that, the coldness of treating a living person as a “prop” is also… real.
What a contradictory and painful way of living this is!
He couldn’t imagine it.
If I had been instilled with this kind of philosophy by my father from the very beginning…what would I become?
Will he, like in the picture, take care of others tenderly while coldly calculating her “utilization value” in his heart?
The thought of this possibility made him feel extremely nauseous.
“Saber…” He looked at the Knight King beside him for help.
Saber’s eyes were extremely complicated.
She saw the boy’s inner struggle, saw the brilliance of his humanity, and saw that he was fighting a desperate battle with Emiya Kiritsugu’s cold “curse”.
“…He’s resisting.”
Saber said in a deep voice.
“Emiya Kiritsugu wanted to shape him into an emotionless machine, but he failed.”
“Shirou’s nature prevents him from truly considering that girl as a tool. That’s why he’s so tormented and conflicted.”
Although she still despised what Emiya Kiritsugu had done, she had more respect for the struggling boy in the picture.
Because, that was the proof that he was still unwilling to give up his “heart” even in hell.
Toosaka Rin crossed her arms, her brows furrowed.
“…I see. So, you’re doing ‘breeding’?”
Using a magician’s logic, she instantly understood the nature of this behavior.
In order to keep your precious magic props at their best performance, you must provide them with the most suitable environment.
“It’s really…unpleasant to the extreme.”
Although she understood, she couldn’t accept it.
In her opinion, this is more hypocritical and disgusting than pure evil.
However, when she saw the painful and shaken look that occasionally appeared in Shirou’s eyes in the picture, she felt a little shaken in her heart.
“This guy… isn’t completely hopeless.”
She snorted and turned her head away.
“It depends on whether you can get rid of your bastard father’s brainwashing, stupid Emiya.”
Illya looked at the screen, at Shirou and Miyu’s warm yet strange daily life, with an expression changing from gloomy to bright.
envy.
Yes, she was still jealous.
I am jealous of the girl named Miyu who can be taken care of so attentively by her “brother”.
Even if… there are impure motives behind that care.
But then, when she saw Shirou’s inner monologue, her jealousy turned into cold sarcasm and a hint of… pleasure.
“Look, Berserker.”
She pointed at the screen and giggled.
“That guy, like his damn father, is a liar.”
“He’s not really a brother, he’s just a… a guard dog who looks after the tools!”
She used the most vicious language to attack the boy.
It seemed that only in this way could the stinging feeling in her heart caused by seeing the word “family” be slightly relieved.
Irisviel looked at the scene, feeling extremely distressed.
What she saw was not a hypocrite.
Rather, he was a poor child who was forced into a desperate situation by his most beloved father.
“Look, Kiritsugu…”
There was a cry in her voice.
“Shirou… can’t do that. He’s not that cold-hearted at all.”
“What you’re leaving him isn’t an ideal at all, it’s your own inner demons! You’re turning him into a miserable monster just like you!”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s face was as pale as paper.
He looked at the “son” in the picture who was being tortured by his own ideas, and his heart seemed to be gripped by an invisible big hand.
He was wrong.
He was so wrong.
He originally thought that it was “correct” to train Shirou to be a “machine” like himself, who could abandon all emotions for the sake of his goals.
But now, the light curtain was telling him.
All he did was to push a child with a warm heart into the endless hell called “contradiction” with his own hands.
“Don’t… develop feelings for him…”
He muttered to himself unconsciously at the screen.
“That would be your…fatal injury…”
At this moment, he was not ordering, but… begging.
Sakura’s body was trembling slightly.
fear.
An incomparable fear gripped her.
She saw that beneath the gentle smile of her senior, she saw the same coldness as that of Zouken Matou, who treated people as “tools.”
However, she also saw the senior’s irrepressible wavering feeling that came from the heart.
She was scared.
I am afraid that my senior will become just like his father.
But she still held out a glimmer of hope.
She hoped that the senior could overcome the “curse” and could…retain the gentleness that she longed for.
This contradictory feeling made her feel extremely painful.
“boring.”
Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes, has completely lost his patience.
“I thought I would see a sharp and clean ‘blade’, but in the end, it was just a piece of scrap metal mixed with too many impurities.”
He was extremely fed up with this “struggle of human nature”.
In his opinion, either he should continue to be as cruel as a king and treat everything as straw dogs.
Or, indulge in mortal emotions and die like a clown.
This state of being neither up nor down is the ugliest and the most boring.
“Emiya Kiritsugu, your choice of heir truly disappoints me.”
The picture on the screen, however, took a turn at this moment.
That day, a corner of the roof of the Emiya family’s house, which had been in disrepair for a long time, was washed away by a heavy rain.
Shirou looked at the leaking ceiling and the bucket placed underneath, a look of distress on his face.
Repairing the roof will cost a lot of money.
And this is something he simply cannot afford at the moment.
Miyu, who was standing by, looked at his distressed expression and lowered her head silently.
At night.
Shirou came back tired from working outside, but found that something was different at home.
The roof, which was leaking, was repaired.
Not only that, there was a small pile on the table, shining golden under the light…
bullion?!
“Miyu…what is this…?”
Shirou watched all this in shock, then looked at the little girl standing beside him, feeling a little uneasy.
Miyu lowered her head and whispered, “I saw that my brother… looked very distressed… so…”
She stretched out her little hand.
A flash of magical light flashed in the air.
A brand new gold nugget of incredibly high purity appeared in her palm out of thin air.
Chapter 13: Golden Flash vs. Red A! The ultimate showdown between two Emiya Shirou, two fakes! (Old version)
[Proof of the Son of God: Immaculate wish-granting machine, cruel hope.]At this moment, Kiritsugu Emiya’s last words before his death exploded in Shirou Emiya’s mind like thunder!
[——She… is the complete form of the Holy Grail, the Son of God, a miracle that can fulfill all wishes.]My father…didn’t lie to me.
All of this is true.
The girl in front of him was someone he had taken care of for several years and had unknowingly become his “family member”.
Its essence is truly… something that can create value out of thin air and distort cause and effect…
monster.
He looked at Miyu’s little face, which was slightly pale due to the use of power.
He looked at the heavy gold nugget in his hand again, which was emitting a cold light.
For the first time, his face showed a mixture of shock, ecstasy, and…
A distorted expression of endless fear.
Hope is just around the corner.
But the price of this hope is to completely push the “sister” in front of him onto the altar of “sacrifice”.
“This…is this…magic?!”
Emiya Shirou was completely stunned by the scene before him.
Creation… out of thin air?
And it’s gold?
This was no longer within the scope of “enhancement” magic that he could understand!
“Saber! This…”
“It’s the deterioration of the Third Law: Soul Materialization (Heavens Feel). No… it should be said that it manifests in another direction.”
Saber’s expression was extremely solemn.
“She is… the living Holy Grail.”
She came to almost the same conclusion as before.
But this time, she was more certain.
“Shirou, do you understand? Possessing this kind of power means that she will become the ‘treasure’ pursued and coveted by all magi in the world.”
“You in that world… the one he wants to protect is not a sister at all.”
“It is a ‘source of disaster’ that could trigger the next Holy Grail War, or even the one after that.”
“——!!”
The moment Toosaka Rin saw the gold nugget appear, she suddenly held her breath!
The magic circuits in her body were buzzing with excessive excitement!
“That’s right… absolutely right! This is one of the paths to the ‘root’!”
Her eyes were shining!
What Holy Grail War, what Heroic Spirits.
In front of the miracle of “creation out of thin air”, which is almost at the “realm of God”, it becomes insignificant!
“No… I have to calm down… calm down…”
She forced herself to sit down, but her brain was working at overclocked speed.
“Creating something out of nothing violates the principle of ‘equivalent exchange’ and must have its price and limitations… But even so, this value is already… inestimable!”
At this moment, for the first time, she began to understand why Emiya Kiritsugu in that world had become so crazy.
Because, it is impossible for any real magician to remain rational when seeing such a “miracle”!
“… and me, the same.”
Illya looked at the glowing little girl, and the expression on her face became extremely complicated.
Jealousy, ridicule, pleasure…all these emotions slowly faded away at this moment.
What remains is a kind of cold sadness among the same kind.
She knows better than anyone what it means to possess the power to “perform miracles.”
That means that from the moment you were born, you were not “you”.
You are just a “container” that carries the desires and ideals of countless people.
“…How pitiful.”
She uttered these three words softly, not knowing whether she was talking about Miyu or…herself.
“Proof… has appeared.”
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the gold nugget, his eyes becoming extremely deep.
He was neither excited nor ecstatic.
There is only one kind of “plan goes well” and cold calmness.
He turned his head and looked at the “son” in the picture with a distorted expression.
“See, Shirou?”
He seemed to be giving his final instructions to another self across time and space.
“The evidence is right in front of you.”
“Now, all you have to do is discard those boring emotions of yours, accept it, use it, and control it!”
“Don’t hesitate any longer! To save the world, this is… the only way!”
“Kiritsugu, shut up!”
Irisviel interrupted him, tears streaming down her face.
“Don’t you understand yet?! You are pushing him into the abyss!”
She looked at the picture of Shirou, who was trembling slightly with fear, and her heart ached.
She knew that from this moment on, that boy and that false daily life would no longer exist.
The moment Miyu produced the gold nugget out of thin air, Sakura’s body suddenly shrank.
She seemed to see the countless imprinted insects in her body, which also possessed “inhuman powers”.
This kind of power that does not belong to “human” never brings happiness.
But…disaster.
It is coveted, it is exploited, it is being imprisoned like a monster, and it is endless pain.
“…Run away.”
She unconsciously whispered to Miyu on the screen.
“Hurry…stay away from him…”
She didn’t even know who the “he” she was referring to was.
“oh–?”
The Hero King, who had been lacking interest, lit up his scarlet snake eyes for the first time in a real sense when he saw the golden light.
His body leaned forward slightly.
“This luster… this purity… it’s pure gold, without any impurities!”
He wasn’t marveling at “magic.”
But to appreciate a perfect “treasure”.
“Hmph, a contaminated cup like the Holy Grail can’t even compare to it.”
He licked his lips, a greedy and pleased smile on his face.
“A ‘treasure’ that can produce ‘treasure’ endlessly… Interesting! So interesting!”
“The King has made his decision.”
He raised his glass and pointed it at Miyu in the picture from a distance.
“—You belong to me now.”
As for the young man named “Emiya Shirou” standing in front?
In his opinion, it was just a troublesome bug that needed to be crushed to death.
The peaceful daily life has been completely torn apart.
When the miracles of the “Son of God” are exposed in broad daylight.
The hunters named “Destiny” have quietly raised their butcher knives.
On the light curtain, Shirou Emiya from that parallel world was immersed in the huge shock brought by the truth of the “Son of God”.
Ecstasy, fear, confusion, and a cold sense of mission from Kiritsugu Emiya.
All kinds of emotions intertwined on his still young face, forming an extremely distorted picture.
The “sister” he protects is his “hope” to save the world.
The “family” he cherishes are the “props” he must use.
This contradiction, heavy enough to crush any adult, is now completely weighed down on the shoulders of a teenage boy.
And fate didn’t even give him a moment to breathe or think.
[Warning: High-intensity magic reaction, rapidly approaching!][Warning: Spatial coordinates are forcibly fixed, and the “walls” between worlds are being eroded! ]A shrill alarm sounded on the light curtain without any warning!
The scene suddenly changed!
The originally calm night sky was instantly shrouded in an ominous dark purple.
A magic circle huge enough to cover the entire ruins of Fuyuki City slowly unfolded above the clouds like a devil’s pupil!
That wasn’t magic from the Holy Grail War system, nor was it from any of the Clock Tower schools.
It is an absolute power that is more ancient, more domineering, and full of the principles of the “world”!
The space shattered into pieces like glass!
Two figures slowly descended from the broken space crack.
The leader was a silver-haired man with a handsome face but cold eyes.
Next to him was a girl with waist-length blonde hair, wearing strange black armor and an expressionless face like a doll.
They just floated in the air, looking down at everything on the ground with a scrutinizing and judgmental gaze.
They have only one goal.
——The red-haired boy who was protecting Miyu tightly behind him.
“—Found it.”
The silver-haired man in the lead, Julian Endsworth, spoke in a tone devoid of any emotion.
“‘Pandora’s Box’, the singularity of disaster.”
His gaze passed Emiya Shirou and fell on Miyu.
“According to the correction power of the ‘world’, you are hereby recovered.”
“What…what is that?!”
Shirou Emiya looked at the ridiculously huge magic circle in the sky and was completely stunned.
The suffocating feeling of oppression that seeped out from the screen caused all the magic circuits in his body to instinctively sound the alarm!
This is completely different from the Holy Grail War he experienced!
“Saber!”
“It’s a subspecies of the inherent barrier… No, that’s not right!” For the first time, Saber’s face showed true “shock”!
“This isn’t a world created by a magus alone! This is… this is directly invoking the power of the ‘world’ itself! Who are they?! Even a magician wouldn’t be able to do something like this!”
As a heroic spirit, she could clearly sense that the two people were entangled with laws that were similar to “restraint” but completely different, and came from another “world”!
“You must be kidding…”
The gem in Toosaka Rin’s hand fell to the ground with a “pa” sound.
Her eyes were wide open, staring at the magic circle, her mind blank.
“World-class magic…directly interfering with spatial coordinates…forcibly breaking through the world’s wall…”
She muttered incoherently.
Each word represents a taboo area that modern magicians dare not even think about!
“Who the hell are these people?! No, no, no, this isn’t just a ‘magician’ anymore! This is something only mythical ‘gods’ would use!”
Her pride and confidence as an elite magician were completely crushed at this moment.
“Wow…”
Illya raised her head and looked at the scene that could be described as “earth-shattering”, with excitement and curiosity flashing in her red eyes.
“It looks like it’s much more fun than the Holy Grail War.”
She didn’t feel any fear at all, instead it was like she had discovered a new toy.
But Berserker behind her let out a low, warning growl.
His beast-like instinct told him that the two people in the sky were the “real” threat.
“…Are you here?”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s eyes instantly switched to “magician killer” mode.
He came to the conclusion almost the moment the magic circle appeared.
“It’s not the Magic Association, nor the Holy Church, but an unknown third party.”
“The target is the ‘Son of God’.”
“The method is world-class space magic.”
“The conclusion… is unbeatable.”
He analyzed as quickly as possible, but the result he came to was one of despair.
He couldn’t think of any way to protect a child from such an enemy.
“Kiritsugu…” Irisviel nervously held his hand, her palms filled with cold sweat.
Sakura looked at the scene that looked like divine punishment and trembled with fear.
That power reminded her of the bottomless despair she felt when she was being bitten by the marking worm.
All her thoughts were focused on the senior who was protecting the little Miyu.
“Senior… run away quickly…”
She prayed weakly in a voice that only she could hear.
“Hmph, finally, some decent looking bugs have crawled in?”
The Hero King Gilgamesh still maintained a lazy and arrogant attitude.
Although the magic circle was indeed very powerful, in his eyes, it was still a trivial acrobatic show.
“Let me see what you bastards, who don’t even deserve a name, are here for.”
What he was really interested in was the wishing machine, which he considered a “treasure”.
And these people, obviously, came to “steal things” from him.
“Hand over Miyu…?”
On the ground, Shirou Emiya raised his head, and the fear and confusion in his eyes were being replaced by a cold flame.
He remembered his father’s words.
[——You must use her in my place to save this hopeless world.]Hand it over?
How is that possible!
This final “tool” that can save the world must never be handed over to anyone!
“I refuse!”
He roared, protecting Miyu tightly behind him.
“Oh? Resist? Stupid choice.”
The blonde girl in the sky—Angelica—stretched out her hand expressionlessly.
A card shining with golden light appeared out of thin air in her hand.
In the center of the card is an “Archer” class symbol.
“——ArcherInstall (Archer possession).”
She whispered.
The card instantly merged into her body!
The next second, light burst out!
A set of golden armor, full of holiness and majesty, which is very familiar to the whole world, covered her body!
With her body as the center, countless golden ripples spread in the air!
Hundreds of knives, spears, swords, and halberds stretched out from them!
——Gate of Babylon!
But it’s a degraded version!
Chapter 14: Toosaka Rin’s Worldview Collapses: Transformed into a Heroic Spirit with just one card? What did I train for seven years? (Old Version)
“What?!”
This scene made everyone except Gilgamesh’s eyes almost pop out of their heads in shock!
That girl… turned into Gilgamesh?!
“In that case, you and this singularity will be eliminated together.”
Angelica’s voice was cold, and she waved her arm!
The sky was filled with Noble Phantasms, like a golden rainstorm, shooting towards Shirou and Miyu on the ground!
Death is at hand!
Shirou Emiya gritted his teeth as he watched the attack that was enough to destroy an army.
The gap is too big!
what to do?
Using enhanced magic to resist? It’s like trying to stop a chariot with a mantis arm!
At this critical moment, Miyu in his arms suddenly stuffed a card into his hand.
It was a card that also had the “Archer” symbol drawn on it, but it was emitting a red glow.
“Brother…” Miyu said in a trembling voice, “Use… use this…”
Shirou Emiya lowered his head, looked at the card in his hand, and then looked at the rain of Noble Phantasms in the sky.
His eyes became extremely resolute in an instant!
There is no time to hesitate!
He raised the card and, imitating the girl just now, roared with all his strength:
“——ArcherInstall (Archer possession)!!!”
He stabbed the card into his chest fiercely!
[Heroic Spirit Possession: Transformed into a “Demon” to protect]Severe pain!
Unimaginable pain spread throughout my body!
It was as if countless red-hot iron rods were stirring wildly in his nerves!
However, along with it comes endless knowledge and magic as vast as the ocean!
Light burst out from his chest!
A set of pitch-black tight combat suit and a bright red holy cloth windbreaker instantly covered his body!
His hair stood up and turned a vigorous white!
Out of thin air, a pair of black and white swords appeared in his hands!
——Gan Jiang and Mo Ye!
He roared and crossed his swords in front of him!
“——Sevenfold Rings of Blazing Sky (RhoAias)!!!”
A huge, legendary conceptual defensive treasure composed of seven petals of light suddenly unfolded in front of him!
Boom boom boom——!!!
The golden rain of treasures slammed heavily into the iris shield!
The stirred up gusts of air razed the surrounding ruins to the ground again!
On the light curtain, two “Archers”, two “fakes”, started the most intense showdown!
[Fake Showdown: Projection Magic vs. King’s Treasure (Degraded Version)]“I…became…Archer?!”
Shirou Emiya looked at the image of himself with white hair and red clothes, holding two swords and unfolding a shield of light, and his brain completely shut down.
He did it?
I… actually used the power of the red-robed heroic spirit that had been chasing me?!
So… So, I can become this strong?!
An indescribable excitement and yearning surged from the bottom of his heart.
For the first time, he saw a possible path that would allow him to realize his ideal of being a “partner of justice” with his own hands!
“—This is blasphemy against the Heroic Spirits!”
Saber’s roar brought him back to reality.
The Knight King’s face was filled with anger and disdain.
“Turning the legends and glory of heroes’ lives into digitized cards, and using them as if they were props… This behavior is more despicable than any enemy!”
“They don’t deserve the title of heroes at all!”
She felt genuine sorrow and anger for those heroic spirits who could not find peace even after death and whose powers were even stolen.
“Hahaha–?!”
Toosaka Rin has completely given up thinking.
Her mouth opened into an “O” shape, uttering meaningless syllables.
What does “Install” mean?
Inserting the card into your body will turn you into a Servant?!
This…this…
“This isn’t magic!!!”
She grabbed her hair and screamed uncontrollably.
In order to summon Archer, I prepared for seven years, adjusting my magic power, searching for holy relics, and staying up late to draw magic circles…
So, the magician in this world can do it with just one card?!
Moreover, the enemy can also transform into Gilgamesh? !
That big idiot Emiya can actually turn into Archer?!
Her worldview, her magic theory, and all her pride as an elite magician were shattered to pieces by the “foul” battle on the light screen.
“Wow! That’s amazing!”
Illya jumped up from her seat excitedly, with little stars twinkling in her eyes.
“He’s transformed! Bro, he’s transformed! Just like a magical girl!”
She didn’t consider the issue of “blasphemy against the heroic spirit” at all, she just thought the scene before her was so cool!
“Berserker, look! Someone cosplayed that Gilgamesh! It’s so funny!”
She pointed at Angelica and laughed.
He had no idea of ​​the horror of this “power being copied”.
“……I see.”
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the thing called “Class Card” and for the first time, his eyes showed a mixture of admiration and… greed.
“Practical, efficient, and…controllable.”
He instantly understood the strategic value of this weapon.
There is no need to consider the loyalty of the Servant, and no need to prepare complicated relics.
With just one card, a magician can be instantly armed with a super-standard combat power possessing a “Noble Phantasm”.
“If…if there was such a thing during the Fourth Holy Grail War…”
His breathing became a little rapid.
Irisviel felt a chill in her heart as she looked at her husband’s expression.
She looked at the screen again, and saw Shirou, who was in great pain from using the card, with worry written all over his face.
“Kiritsugu, that’s not a good thing… It’s the power of the devil that you bought at the cost of your own body…”
Sakura looked at the “senior” with white hair and red clothes in the picture, and subconsciously covered her mouth.
So… so handsome…
He is completely different from the gentle person he usually is.
That strength, that determination to fight to protect others, made her feel dizzy.
But then, when she saw the painful expression on her senior’s face and the enemy’s golden treasures all over the sky, her heart was gripped again.
At first, the Hero King Gilgamesh watched Angelica’s transformation with a hint of amusement.
“Oh? A fake imitating this king? You have quite the nerve.”
However, when Angelica really unfolded the “King’s Treasure” and launched those collections that belonged to him in a degraded and crude way.
The smile on his face froze.
Next second.
A mighty power that was enough to make the entire Fuyuki City tremble, an overwhelming divine power that dominated the world and was the only one in the world, suddenly erupted from the top of this tall building!
The wine glass turned into powder in his hands.
In the scarlet snake pupils, burning with pure, incinerating…
fury!!!
“——Bastard!!!!!”
A roar that did not sound like a human voice seemed to tear the entire sky apart!
“You ignorant ants! How dare you—! How dare you—!!!”
“How dare you touch my treasure with your dirty hands!!!”
“How dare you wear the glory of this king on your lowly bodies like a tattered piece of clothing!!!”
“Unforgivable!!!”
“This King will completely erase your existence, along with your despicable world, from the very beginning of time!!!!”
He really had the intention to kill!
As for the one who is fighting the fake, the other fake – Shirou Emiya?
In his eyes, it was just a funny, ugly, and…
Damn it, it’s just a farce!
boom–!!!
Above the light curtain, the golden rain of treasures and the colorful iris shield collided violently, erupting with a deafening roar!
The entire ruins of Fuyuki City trembled incessantly in the aftermath of this extraordinary battle.
The Shield of Aias (RhoAias), wielded by the hero Ajax during the Trojan War, is a powerful defensive weapon capable of withstanding the javelin thrown by the great hero Hector.
“—Crack.”
A crisp cracking sound was heard.
The first crack appeared on the huge shield of light.
Then came the second, the third…
“hateful……!”
The white-haired Shirou Emiya clenched his teeth, and his muscles were cramping due to the excessive output of magic power.
He could clearly feel that the magic power contained in this class card was being consumed rapidly!
The opponent’s rain of Noble Phantasms seemed endless!
“A fake Noble Phantasm is still a fake.” In the sky, Angelica, transformed into Gilgamesh, pronounced her verdict in a tone devoid of emotion.
“And your defense ends here.”
As soon as the words fell, a huge golden shield engraved with intricate patterns emerged from the ripples and slammed heavily onto the Shield of Aias!
Boom——!!!
Seven petals shattered with a sound!
Shirou Emiya was struck by a heavy hammer and flew backwards, crashing heavily into the ruins behind him.
“elder brother!”
Miyu screamed in terror.
“It’s not over yet!”
Shirou struggled to his feet from the rubble, blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. He raised his hand, and a strangely shaped spiral sword, like a drill, appeared in his palm.
“—Caladbolg II (pseudo-Spiral Sword)!”
He placed this fantasy collapse-level treasure on the longbow constructed with magic power, and the bowstring was pulled to the full moon!
“Oh? You want to shoot?”
Angelica’s face remained expressionless.
But behind her, more golden ripples emerged.
From it, dozens of divine weapons stretched out, each emitting the brilliance of an A-level treasure!
The gap is obvious.
Shirou Emiya is using his pitiful magic power to copy “a” Noble Phantasm.
But the other party owns the “entire treasure house”!
This battle was unfair from the beginning.
However, just as the attacks from both sides were about to break out again.
The silver-haired man who had been suspended in mid-air like a bystander—Julian Endsworth—slowly raised his hand.
“—That’s it.”
An invisible yet irresistible huge pressure instantly enveloped the entire battlefield!
The Noble Phantasm behind Angelica disappeared.
The spiral sword in Emiya Shirou’s hand also turned into a point of light and dissipated into the air.
“Fighting is meaningless.”
Julian’s figure appeared on the ground as if teleporting.
He looked at Emiya Shirou, who had a wary look on his face, and spoke calmly in a tone as if stating the truth.
“Emiya Shirou, why are you resisting?”
“We are not your enemies.”
He paused and turned his gaze to the shivering purple-haired girl.
“We…are here to save the world’s ‘justice’.”
Julian slowly revealed a truth that was so cruel and despairing.
“Our world is heading towards destruction. The planet’s vitality is about to be exhausted. Humanity… has no future.”
“And that girl, Miyu Sakazuki, as the ‘Child of God’, is the only hope that can bring about a miracle and save our world…”
“Now, let me ask you.”
Julian’s eyes became extremely sharp, as if they were going to pierce through Shirou Emiya’s soul.
“To save a world on the verge of destruction, and the billions of people who live on that world…”
“Sacrificing her, isn’t it naturally ‘right’?”
[A Conflict of Beliefs: The World, or One Person?]Chain Reaction: Questioning Justice
Emiya Shirou was stunned.
He looked at the silver-haired man in the picture, listened to the cold question, and felt as if his brain was hit by a heavy hammer.
Sacrifice… one person?
Save…the world?
This… isn’t this exactly…
Isn’t this exactly the ideal that he inherited from Emiya Kiritsugu?!
In order to save the majority, the minority will be eliminated without hesitation.
Isn’t this what a “partner of justice” should do?
Why……
Why, when these words come out of the enemy’s mouth, are they so… cold, so… unpleasant?
He subconsciously looked at Saber beside him.
Saber’s face also revealed an extremely complicated expression.
As the king, she understands better than anyone else.
Throughout her life, she practiced the path of “sacrificing herself (the minority) for the kingdom (the majority).”
In theory, she couldn’t refute Julian’s words.
When she saw that the person being treated as a “sacrifice” was an innocent, trembling little girl, her pride and glory as a knight made a silent protest.
“This…is not justice.”
She whispered in a voice that was almost like a dream.
“It’s just… tyranny.”
Chapter 15 Everyone is shocked! Emiya Shirou gives the most selfish answer in history! I choose Miyu! The life and death of the whole world depends on me (old version)
“…Logically speaking, he’s not wrong.”
Toosaka Rin’s lips were a little dry.
As a rational magician, she had to admit that Julian’s theory was “correct”.
It is in line with “utilitarianism” and can achieve the “greatest good”, the optimal solution.
Sacrifice one, save a billion.
This multiple-choice question does not require any thinking.
Her gaze fell on the white-haired figure in the picture, who was covered in blood but still tightly protecting Miyu.
For some reason, her usually rational brain was screaming like crazy.
——Don’t choose!
——Don’t make the “right” choice!
“Damn it… why…”
She scratched her hair irritably.
She found that the “rationality” that she was proud of had become so pale and powerless at this moment.
“Ha! Here we go again!”
When Illya heard Julian’s words, she sneered disdainfully.
“That ‘for the world’ nonsense again!”
“Kiritsugu was like this, Einzbern was like this, and now this weird guy shows up and it’s still the same!”
She put her hands on her hips, her face full of disgust.
“You adults always like to use such high-sounding excuses to do the most cruel things!”
“What do you mean by saving the world? In the final analysis, isn’t it just sacrificing us ‘vessels’ for your own wishes?!”
Her words hit the nail on the head.
“……!”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s body shook violently.
Every word Julian said was like a knife, stabbing his heart.
Because, those words and his own ideas are almost… exactly the same!
Once upon a time, he was also like this, standing on the commanding heights of “justice” to weigh the scales of life.
In order to save five hundred people, he could blow up a plane carrying three hundred people without hesitation.
He always thought that he was “right”.
But now, when he listened to this “correctness” as a “bystander”, he truly felt how much… arrogance and cruelty lay behind this “correctness”.
Irisviel held his hand tightly. She could feel that her husband was experiencing an unprecedented earthquake in his heart.
“don’t want……”
Ying looked at the light curtain, her eyes filled with fear.
I’m afraid that the senior in that parallel world will make the “correct” choice.
I was afraid that because of his grand ideal of “saving the world”, he would push the girl he had always protected into the abyss with his own hands.
Just like…
Just like back then, the Tōsaka family sent themselves to the hell of the Matou family for the “righteousness” of the magician.
She didn’t want to see the same tragedy happen again.
“Oh? Save the world?”
The Hero King Gilgamesh seemed to have heard some huge joke.
“A mere bastard, you dare to talk about ‘saving the world’? You’re so arrogant!”
His scarlet snake eyes were filled with tyrannical contempt.
“This world belongs to this king! When will it be your turn as insects to decide its existence?!”
“To save your soon-to-rot garbage heap, you want to rob me of my treasure? This sin is ten thousand times worse than imitating me!”
In his opinion, Julian’s “righteous” words were nothing more than the most clumsy excuses made by the robber to cover up his crimes.
The whole world seemed to hold its breath.
Waiting for the final answer from the white-haired boy.
On one side are billions of lives and the survival of the entire “world”.
On the other side is the only “family” that has depended on each other for several years.
This multiple-choice question is so heavy, so… hopeless.
Emiya Shirou slowly lowered his head.
Countless images flashed through his mind.
The cold look in his father’s eyes, full of a sense of mission, before he died, flashed before his eyes.
[——Use her to save this hopeless world.]The extremely “correct” question raised by the silver-haired man flashed past my mind.
[——Sacrificing her, isn’t it, naturally, the ‘right’ thing to do?]correct……
Yeah, that’s absolutely right.
So correct that it is irrefutable.
So correct that it gave him chills.
Another picture flashed through his mind.
It was that snowy night when he first met that little girl who seemed to be frozen to death.
It was he who put his coat on her.
It was he who brought her back to that empty home.
It was him who watched her, from a hollow doll, learn to smile, learn to cry, and learn…how to live like a “human being” little by little.
Those five years were a time when we depended on each other.
During those five years, a small “home” was built on the ruins.
That all…
Could it be that all this was just a “prelude” to today, to send her to the altar as a sacrifice?
Emiya Shirou slowly raised his head.
His face was bruised and covered in blood.
But his eyes became clearer and more determined than ever before.
It was a smile of relief, as if all burdens had been lifted.
He looked at Julian in front of him and announced his answer in a voice that seemed to be shouting out his soul.
“—Ah, yes, what you said is quite ‘correct’.”
“Sacrificing one person for the sake of the world, this kind of thing, no matter how you look at it, is ‘just’.”
“But…”
He suddenly protected Miyu behind him with even greater force!
In an instant, his eyes became like a sharp sword drawn from its sheath!
“—I choose Miyu!”
“I don’t care about the world! I don’t care about the lives of millions of people!”
“That kind of thing…that kind of thing that I can’t even see or feel, what does it have to do with me?!”
“I am just such a selfish, hopeless hypocrite!”
“I just, simply, hope that my only sister can be happy!!!”
[Yukishita’s answer: I chose “sister”! ]Chain Reaction: The Price of Enlightenment
When the words “I choose Miyu” resounded throughout the heavens and earth, Emiya Shirou felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
He looked at the “himself” in the picture, who was openly against the whole world for one person.
He suddenly realized that all his previous confusion, all his pain, all his self-doubt…
At this moment, it seemed as if all the answers were known.
Save everyone?
Is that kind of thing…really possible?
The ending of the Heroic Spirit Emiya has already told him that the end of that road is endless nothingness.
But this “self” in front of me gave another answer in the most clumsy, selfish, and most… dazzling way.
——If you can’t save everyone, then try your best to save the one you want to save the most.
“……I……”
He clenched his fists, and for the first time, a fire that was different from “inherited” and truly belonged to “himself” ignited in his eyes.
Saber looked at the boy beside her, who seemed to have undergone some kind of transformation in an instant.
He looked at the young man in the picture again who made the choice of “not being king”.
She smiled.
It was a smile that came from the heart and was filled with immense relief.
“—You gave a better answer than I did, Shirou.”
She said softly.
“……Fool.”
Toosaka Rin cursed out the word she had said countless times.
But this time, there was no trace of sarcasm in her voice.
There is only the unconcealable deep… shock.
My eyes were wet without me noticing.
“A complete…huge idiot…”
She knew that from this moment on, this man named “Emiya Shirou” would bear the crime of “destroying the world” and become the “enemy of the whole world” in the true sense.
But, for some reason, she felt.
That figure, burdened with guilt and hostile to the entire world…
So tall, so…handsome.
Illya stared blankly.
Looking at the man who shouted the words she wanted to hear most, “Brother”.
【I choose my sister! 】
These words were like a warm current that instantly melted the iceberg of “hatred” in her heart that had been frozen for ten years.
Tears rolled down uncontrollably from her red eyes.
“……Um.”
She nodded with all her strength.
“This is… this is… my… brother…”
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the “son” in the picture who openly “betrayed” his teachings.
He lost.
His cold, correct theory of sacrificing the minority to save the majority.
I was completely defeated by this clumsy boy in the most unreasonable way.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
In the end, he just let out a long sigh, as if to let out all the fatigue of his life…
There was a hint on his face that he himself hadn’t noticed…
pride.
“……yes.”
Irisviel held him tightly with tears in her eyes, smiling with great happiness.
“Our son is the best hero in the world.”
Sakura stared at the figure who was against the world in order to protect his family.
Her heart, which had long sunk into the abyss of darkness, seemed to be thrown into it by a small stone, causing ripples.
For the first time, she began to fantasize.
What if one day, I also become the “enemy of the world”.
Senior, he…
Will you choose yourself like this?
This thought, like a seed, quietly sprouted in her heart.
“Hahaha…ha …!!!”
The hero king Gilgamesh, who had been furious, suddenly burst into a hearty laugh after hearing that declaration!
“Beautiful! So beautiful!!!”
There was a gleam of admiration in his scarlet snake eyes!
“Abandon the world! Abandon justice! Abandon the lives of all bastards!”
“Just for the trivial, ego-driven desire of ‘protecting my sister’, I dare to bare my fangs to the whole world!”
“This attitude! This arrogance! This self-absorbed ego! This is simply… the prototype of a king!!!”
He hates hypocrisy and detests fraternity.
But he admired this kind of pure evil and pure love that carried out “self-will” to the extreme!
“Shirou Emiya!”
He raised the wine glass that had been refilled at some point, and for the first time, in an almost egalitarian tone, he loudly called out the name!
“—This king, you are allowed to look up at me!”
That resolute declaration, a gamble of everything, still echoes in everyone’s ears.
On the light curtain, the white-haired boy used his thin, scarred body to build a line of defense against the entire world for his only sister.
In the sky, Julian, the head of the Endsworth family, fell silent after hearing this answer.
For the first time, a crack appeared on his face, which had been frozen for thousands of years.
It wasn’t anger, nor was it surprise.
Rather, it was a kind of pity, as if looking at an unreasonable madman.
“……Yeah.”
He slowly closed his eyes.
“I understand, Emiya Shirou.”
“You are not a hypocrite.”
“You are just a pure fool who can’t even see the scales of ‘justice’.”
When he opened his eyes again, that compassion had disappeared without a trace.
What replaced it was absolute and unquestionable…
“–eliminate.”
He raised his hand and gave his final instructions to the countless magicians of the Endsworth family behind him.
“Everyone, perform the replacement magic.”
“Completely eliminate Emiya Shirou and the singularity Miyu Sakazuki.”
“—To save our world.”
Order, issue.
The battle breaks out again!
But this time, it was no longer a test.
Rather, it is a final war to the death!
Chapter 16: Burning my soul with my broken body! Subverting the world! Unlimited Bladework unfolds just for you! (Old version)
The Final Holy Grail War: Escape at the Risk of Everything
“Miyu, run!”
Emiya Shirou roared and pushed Miyu backwards with a backhand.
And he himself, like a beast cornered, took the initiative to confront those dozens of magicians with unfathomable auras!
“TraceOn!”
Gan Jiang and Moye appeared in his hands again!
He rushed into the enemy camp like a red lightning!
The battle instantly became intense!
Every magician in Endsworth possesses strength that ordinary magicians cannot achieve.
Their displacement magic allows them to appear at any location instantly and launch deadly attacks.
But at this moment, Shirou Emiya is even crazier than them!
He gave up all defense!
All his attacks were to exchange injury for injury, and life for life!
A black magic spear pierced through his shoulder.
Without even frowning, he chopped off the attacker’s head with a backhanded blow!
Blood dyed his pale hair red.
The severe pain stimulated every nerve in his body.
But he seemed to feel nothing and just waved the two swords in his hands madly!
There was only one thought in his mind.
——Delay time!
Fight for Meiyu, fight for even one more second of escape time!
However, the figure he least wanted to see stood in front of him.
It was a doll with a purple ribbon around its neck, and its face looked exactly like a girl he knew.
Her eyes were empty.
She also held a card in her hand.
——”RiderInstall (Rider possession)”
The next second, the purple-haired girl turned into the mythical Gorgon – Medusa!
“–cherry?!”
When Emiya Shirou saw clearly that the puppet being controlled by the enemy and attacking him was a replica of the long-dead “Matou Sakura” in this world.
His movements froze fatally for a moment.
“—got you.”
From another direction, Angelica’s voice sounded coldly.
Dozens of treasures, once again, completely locked him down!
Miyu’s cries could be heard from a distance.
Emiya Shirou looked at the face in front of him, which was extremely familiar, yet extremely unfamiliar.
He looked again and saw the deadly rain that was already approaching.
“…Ah, yes.”
“How can I possibly…protect anyone with just this level of awareness?”
He slowly raised the Archer class card in his hand.
In a voice that seemed to be whispering to the devil, he whispered softly:
“——I’m no longer a hero…or anything like that.”
“So…”
“Lend me all you have!”
“As a price…”
“——I give my life to you!”
Buzz——!!!
The red card burst out with an unprecedented, dazzling light!
Shirou Emiya’s body was like a lit torch!
Life force, magic circuits, soul, and even his very existence…
At this moment, everything turned into the purest fuel and was injected into this card madly!
[Born as a Salary: Contract Established, Limited Expansion, Full Power Unleashed!]“Stop… Stop it now!!!”
Shirou Emiya looked at the “himself” in the picture who was madly burning his own life, and let out a painful roar!
He can feel it!
He could clearly feel that his body was collapsing bit by bit, and his soul was being burned out bit by bit!
This is no longer a battle!
This is… the purest form of suicide!
And when he saw “Yakura” being controlled by the enemy, his heart felt like it was being tightly grasped by a big hand, causing him so much pain that he couldn’t breathe.
“Why…even Sakura…”
Saber pressed his shoulders and forced him to calm down.
But her own face was also filled with shock and emotion.
“…He made his choice.”
The Knight King’s voice was extremely hoarse.
“Give up your life, give up your future, give up everything… just to exchange for the power of ‘protection’.”
“This awareness… is enough to put any Heroic Spirit to shame.”
Toosaka Rin bit her lips hard, her nails digging deeply into her palms.
“Idiot… Idiot! Idiot!!!”
She cursed with all her might.
“Why would you go to such lengths?! She’s just an adopted sister! Is she worth… worth giving up your life for?!”
She couldn’t understand.
She really couldn’t understand!
How precious is a magician’s life? The future holds infinite possibilities.
But this man, for a vague reason called “protection”, so easily used everything of himself as fuel and set it on fire.
In her eyes, this behavior was so stupid, so…
…dazzling.
Illya, looking at the “brother” whose life was burning, all the expressions on her face disappeared.
She just watched quietly.
Look at the man who transformed into a demon to protect his “sister”.
She suddenly found that she couldn’t laugh at all.
Instead, I felt a sense of blockage and discomfort in my heart.
“…Berserker.”
She gently tugged at the hem of the giant’s clothes behind her.
“…It’s a bit, dazzling.”
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the “son” in the picture who paid the price of his life in exchange for power.
Finally, his frozen face could no longer remain calm.
Muscles twitching uncontrollably.
I saw that young man, who was driven to a dead end by his own “ideals”, eventually took a path that was completely different from his own, but also led to hell.
I am constantly “wearing down” myself for the sake of my ideals.
He “burned” himself all at once in order to protect.
“……Why.”
He asked unconsciously.
“Why didn’t you choose the ‘right’ path…”
“Because he is more like a ‘human’ than you, Kiritsugu.” Irisviel answered the question for him with tears in her eyes.
When she saw the controlled “Sakura”, her body trembled violently.
I saw myself, once again, becoming an ominous existence that “hurt” my predecessor.
A deep sense of self-loathing nearly made her faint.
However, when she saw that her predecessor chose to burn his life in order to break through himself, her heart seemed to be pierced.
Pain, guilt, sadness…
All kinds of emotions surged in her heart.
“No…don’t…senior…don’t do this for me…”
She cried silently.
The smile on the face of the Hero King Gilgamesh slowly faded.
He looked at the young man who threw his life into the furnace called “battle” like firewood.
A hint of complexity flashed across his scarlet snake pupils, a complexity that even he himself had not noticed.
“Humph, stupid firefly.”
He snorted coldly.
“Are you trying to challenge the eternal darkness with your fleeting light?”
“What a magnificent, foolish act.”
For the first time, he didn’t call the boy “bastard” or “fake”.
“—Aa …
A shrill roar erupted from Emiya Shirou’s mouth!
His body is changing at a speed visible to the naked eye!
The skin has become dark due to the rampage of the magic circuit!
The muscles are breaking apart inch by inch due to the burning of vitality!
But in contrast, the vast magical power in his body has reached a level comparable to that of a true “heroic spirit”!
“——Get out of here!!!”
He roared, and the Gan Jiang Moye in his hand turned into a black and white lightning. In an instant, he blasted “Ying” in front of him and several magicians behind her away!
He didn’t stop!
He turned into a bloody afterimage, like a red-hot knife, and forcibly tore a hole in the airtight encirclement!
He has only one goal!
——The top of Endsworth Castle!
That’s where Julian is, and it’s also the only “singularity” that can send Miyu away!
“Stop him!”
For the first time, Julian’s voice was filled with anxiety!
Countless magic tricks, countless human figures, came from all directions, surrounding the bloody figure!
But it’s too late.
Emiya Shirou has already stepped into the throne room that belongs to the enemy.
He was covered in blood and his body was in tatters, as if he would completely collapse in the next second.
He looked at the silver-haired man with cold eyes sitting on the throne.
laughed.
“—It’s over, Endsworthy.”
“What?” Julian frowned.
“I say, your ‘justice’ ends here.”
Emiya Shirou slowly opened his arms.
In a tone that seemed to embrace the entire world, he chanted the forbidden spell that belonged to him.
“I am the bone of my sword.”
“Steelismybody, andfireismyblood.”
“I have created over a thousand swords.”
“Unknown to Death, Nor known to Life.”
“Have with stood paint to create many weapons.”
“Yet, those hands will never hold anything.”
“So as I pray, (So as I pray)—”
“——Unlimited BladeWorks! (Unlimited Blade Works)!”
Buzz————!!!
The world has been turned upside down.
Endsworthy’s exotic throne room disappeared.
Instead, there is an endless, pure white world.
The earth is covered with white snow.
The sky is covered with gray clouds.
In the air, there is a constant stream of cold snowflakes floating.
And on this snowy plain, which was so silent that it made one’s heart palpitate, there were endless and various kinds of——
sword.
Each sword was covered in ice and snow.
No flames, no gears, no twilight wilderness.
Only, absolute, eternal…
Dead silence.
This is the mental world of a man who completely “freezes” everything about himself in order to protect a promise.
[The mental image materializes: The oath under the snow, frozen here!]Chain Reaction: The Shape of the Soul
“…Infinite…Sword…”
Emiya Shirou was completely speechless.
He stared blankly at the world of swords covered with ice and snow.
He felt it.
That sadness, that determination, that bone-chilling loneliness of giving up the whole world for one person.
“…So, this is me too.”
He stretched out his hand, as if wanting to touch the snowflakes falling from the screen.
Saber looked at the snowy field and the endless swords, her emerald eyes filled with shock.
“…Is this the shape of your soul, Shirou?”
She had seen the Sword Hill at dusk that belonged to the Heroic Spirit Emiya.
It was a warrior’s graveyard filled with battles and regrets.
And this one in front of me…
“…This is a knight’s sanctuary.”
A guardian knight who dedicated everything to the eternal winter in order to protect his only “princess”. This is his final destination.
“…Inherent…Boundary…?”
Toosaka Rin’s brain crashed for the second time.
If the “Class Card” subverted her “Magic Theory”.
Then, this “inherent barrier” before her completely crushed her “magician’s dignity”.
“He…why does he have the right?!”
She lost her composure and let out a scream.
“That’s an inherent barrier! It’s a top-level forbidden spell, mastered only by magicians of the Age of Gods and the monsters of the ‘world’! How could a half-wit like him… no, a fool who only forced his magic circuits to open later in life… how could he possibly unleash such a thing?!”
But when she saw that world clearly, all her jealousy turned into silent shock.
“…For one person, your heart will become like this…”
She looked at the snowy field that rejected the whole world and existed only for one person.
For the first time, I felt how… insignificant my little nagging thoughts about not being able to summon Saber were.
Illya, looking at the heavy snow, thought of the snow scene outside the German castle that she had seen since she was a child.
She felt that for some reason.
That snow is very warm.
It was so cold and so dead.
However, she felt a tenderness from it that was enough to melt everything.
“……elder brother……”
She called out softly, unconsciously.
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the world composed of countless frozen swords.
His heart, which had stopped beating a long time ago, seemed to be pierced fiercely at this moment.
Lose miserably.
He spent his entire life trying to shape Shirou into a cold sword that would be wielded for “justice.”
As a result, this young man, in his own way, turned himself into an eternal snowfield that existed for the purpose of “protection”.
“…Shirou.”
I can’t bear to watch any more.
Irisviel was already sobbing uncontrollably.
She looked at the young man who had turned his soul into a snow-white painting, and her heart ached beyond words.
Chapter 17 Burning the world, tearing time and space apart! Just to send you to the other side of happiness! Hero King Yao Jing: Your story is enough (old version)
Sakura, look at the snow.
She felt so cold.
She could feel that the world was rejecting her.
Rejecting everything except “Meiyou”.
There is no room for anyone else in the senior’s heart.
That tenderness, that determination, that love that would go against the world…
None of it belongs to her.
Tears silently fell from her empty eyes.
“——Hahahahahahahahaha!!!”
The Hero King Gilgamesh once again laughed heartily!
But this time, the laughter was less brutal and more full of genuine “appreciation”!
“Amazing! Really amazing!”
He stood up, holding the wine glass, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, as if he wanted to confront the snow-white world from afar.
“I actually turned my humble, foolish, yet pure ‘desire’ into the ‘world’!”
“Although, this world is still made up of countless fakes.”
“But, Emiya Shirou!”
There was an unprecedented brilliance flashing in his scarlet snake eyes!
“——This ‘World of Mind’ that you created is the only treasure in your life worthy of being called a ‘genuine’ by this king!!!”
Above the light curtain, the eternal snowfield belonging to Emiya Shirou enveloped everything.
Endless swords, like a silent forest, stand quietly in the ice and snow.
“——Welcome to my hell.”
The white-haired boy stood in the middle of the snowfield, and gave a bloody smile to the silver-haired man on the throne, whose expression became extremely ugly for the first time.
“Your replacement magic is meaningless here.”
“Because the ‘laws’ of this world are determined by me.”
Julian Endsworthy looked at this completely overturned world, feeling the “power of the world” that was rejecting and suppressing him. The calmness on his face finally disappeared completely.
“…Inherent barrier…”
He squeezed out these four words from between his teeth.
“You…are you actually a ‘monster’ of this level?!”
“Monster?” Emiya Shirou laughed.
“No, I’m just a… hopeless, sister-con man.”
Fight, break out!
Across the entire snowfield, tens of thousands of treasures covered in ice and snow emitted a buzzing sound at the same time!
The next second, thousands of swords were fired at once!
Like a swirling snowstorm, it rushed towards Julian from all directions!
“It’s just a fake!”
Julian roared, and the top-level space magic belonging to the Endsworth family was unfolded again!
He tried to change space and avoid this fatal blow.
But, he failed.
He felt like he was cast in cement, and every space jump became extremely difficult!
Just as Shirou said.
Here, he is the “world”!
“hateful!”
Julian could only perform defensive magic in a panic. At the same time, he took out countless precious magic gifts from his imaginary space and tried to resist.
But, it’s useless.
If one sword is broken, ten swords will replace it.
If ten swords are broken, there will be a hundred, a thousand, and so on!
Here, Shirou Emiya’s “Noble Phantasm” is infinite!
The battle situation was reversed in an instant!
The head of the Endsworth family, who had been able to handle Shirou with ease and force him into a desperate situation, now looked like a poor wretch struggling to survive in a snowstorm.
And Shirou Emiya is the absolute master of this snowstorm!
“it’s over!”
Shirou’s figure appeared behind Julian like a ghost.
In his hands, two swords were projected, surpassing the original, at the level of Fantasy Collapse.
Gan Jiang Moye (Overedge)!
Without any hesitation, he swung his two swords fiercely towards Julian’s back!
However!
Just when the blade was about to touch.
A magical power that was extremely dark and filled with mud and curses burst out from Julian’s body!
Everyone is extremely familiar with that breath!
——All the evil in this world (AngraMainyu)!
Shirou’s pupils suddenly shrank!
The black mud instantly formed a pitch-black armor, which not only blocked his two swords, but also corroded his arms along the blades!
“Do you think that our Endsworth family, after studying the Holy Grail for hundreds of years, would have no means to deal with it?”
Julian turned around with a maniacal grin on his face.
“That’s right! We are going to use the power of the Holy Grail to save the world!”
“But before that, I will use this power to completely wipe out you, the ‘enemy of the world’!”
The black mud, like a maggot on the tarsal bone, is madly polluting this pure white world.
Emiya Shirou knew that he was almost reaching his limit.
The power gained by burning life is rapidly fading away.
If this continues, not only will he not be able to kill him, but he will also catch Miyu and him again.
must……
We must use up everything we have to create a “miracle”!
He glanced at Miyu, who was already in tears as she was protected at the edge of the barrier by his last bit of strength.
Revealing a gentle smile.
“—Goodbye, Miyu.”
He suddenly gave up attacking Julian, and turned into a stream of light and rushed into the sky!
He opened his arms and completely merged his soul, which was about to burn out, into this world of ice and snow!
“At the cost of everything I have left!”
“Use my frozen soul as coordinates!”
“My will is the key!”
“——Open the way to happiness for my only sister!!!”
【The Last Projection: The Miracle of Tearing the Wall of the World】
The entire inherent barrier, the endless swords, and the white snow, at this moment, transformed into the purest, indescribable, and enormous magic power!
This magic power was not used to attack.
Instead, all of them were concentrated above the barrier!
Space was torn apart.
Time is distorted.
The “wall” between the worlds was forcibly blasted with a “hole” by this unreasonable will that a man had staked everything on!
On the other side of the hole are countless twinkling, star-like coordinates of parallel worlds.
“Go! Miyu!”
Shirou’s voice had become incredibly weak, as if it would fade away at any moment.
“Go to the world that is the most peaceful, the most stable, and the most suitable for you!”
“Go find the ‘me’ there! He will… replace me…”
“No! No! I don’t want it!!”
Miyu cried, shaking her head frantically.
“I don’t want to go alone! Brother! I want to be with you!”
“……obedient.”
Shirou’s voice was filled with fondness.
“You are not alone.”
He used up his last bit of strength and gave a mischievous smile that was brighter than the sun to the only treasure in his life that was about to be teleported away.
“—Because, over there, there’s a hopelessly sister-con brother waiting for you.”
The light swallowed everything.
Miyu’s figure disappeared into the “hole” leading to another world.
The light dissipated.
The “hole” leading to the parallel world also slowly closed.
The sky turned back into the cold dome of Endsworth Castle.
And that endless sword hill of ice and snow began to shatter into pieces like a phantom.
The snow stopped.
The swords stuck in the ground, one after another, turned into rust and dissipated in the wind.
Emiya Shirou fell helplessly from mid-air.
The red windbreaker he was wearing had faded.
His vigorous white hair also turned back to its normal red color.
His body was half-kneeling on the ground, and he didn’t even have the strength to stand up.
The fire of life is about to go out.
“…You…lunatic…”
Julian, who was not far away, looked at the scene in front of him, and for the first time, a look of “fear” appeared on his face.
He couldn’t understand.
He really couldn’t understand why this man could do this.
But he knew.
Although, he is still alive.
Although, this man is about to die.
But, he lost.
Lost to the unreasonable power called “love” that was enough to distort the world and subvert common sense.
Emiya Shirou didn’t look at him again.
He just, slowly, raised his head.
Looking in the direction where Miyu disappeared.
It seems as if I can penetrate endless time and space and see her living happily in a warm world.
“……Very good.”
It was a pure smile of immense satisfaction, a smile that came from fulfilling a promise and unloading all burdens.
His body slowly fell forward.
Before being completely swallowed by darkness.
He used up his last bit of strength and whispered the last words of his life.
“…This time, I finally… protected it…”
[End of the review: Emiya Shirou (Miyu’s brother)][His crime was “love”; his action was “justice.”]The light curtain slowly dimmed and eventually turned into pitch black.
But that man’s final, satisfied smile was forever imprinted in everyone’s heart.
“…Ah…Ah…”
Shirou Emiya knelt on the ground, crying.
He didn’t know why he was crying.
But, I couldn’t hold back my tears at all.
Those were not tears of sadness.
Rather, it is a kind of moving tears that seem to resonate and sublimate the soul.
I saw another possibility, “Emiya Shirou”.
I saw a true hero who, despite bearing the blame of the whole world, ultimately protected his only treasure and achieved “victory”.
He wiped his tears and slowly stood up.
All the confusion in his eyes has faded away.
“…I won’t lose again.”
Saber, standing beside him, solemnly performed the highest chivalric salute belonging to the ancient British royal family, facing the dark curtain of light.
She didn’t speak.
But her heart was already in turmoil.
“—You save the world in the name of protecting one person… You are the ideal ‘King’ that I could never be.”
Toosaka Rin sat quietly on the sofa.
She didn’t cry or speak.
Just gently covering your face with your hands.
She didn’t want anyone to see her already red eyes.
“……snort.”
After a long time, she finally uttered a hum with a heavy nasal tone.
“From the beginning to the end… he was just… an incurable… idiot…”
“…Wu …
Illya, unable to contain herself any longer, threw herself on the sofa and burst into tears.
“Brother… Stupid brother… Big idiot!!!”
She cried like a child who had lost her most beloved toy forever.
She hates it.
I hate myself in that world. Why didn’t I meet him earlier?
She was also glad.
Fortunately, my “brother” in this world is still alive and well by my side.
Emiya Kiritsugu slowly walked to the window.
He looked out the window and saw a patch of white snow that was so similar to the one in the light curtain.
for a long time.
He turned and looked at his wife.
In an unprecedented, calm, yet powerful tone, he said:
“…Ellie.”
“I give up the Holy Grail.”
The heavy shackles that had tormented him all his life due to “justice” seemed to be completely shattered at this moment by the “son” who implemented “love” with his life.
Irisviel looked at her husband’s face, which was relaxed and looked as if all the burdens had been lifted off his shoulders.
She smiled, tears streaming down her face, and nodded heavily.
“–Um.”
Ying stared at the dark curtain of light for a long time, unable to come back to her senses.
She buried her face deeply between her knees.
The shoulders were shaking constantly.
Her heart had long been eroded by darkness and was filled with jealousy and resentment.
At this moment, it seemed as if that final, satisfied smile had purified me a little.
In a voice that only she could hear, she quietly made a wish that even she felt was extravagant.
“…If one day, I could also…be protected like that…”
The Hero King Gilgamesh fell into a long silence after the light curtain completely went dark.
The entire top-floor luxury suite was so quiet that the only sound was the whistling of the wind outside the window.
He slowly raised the glass of cold red wine in his hand.
I bowed from afar to that dark screen of light, which seemed as if nothing had happened.
However, those scarlet snake eyes were always filled with cruelty and arrogance.
For the first time, a trace of true, pure…
Respect.
[To light a candle, the entire starry sky is burned…]How foolish, yet… magnificent.
【Shirou Emiya…】
[——Your story is a unique treasure that this king will remember.]Chapter 18: Public Execution! Matou Sakura’s only secret in life is exposed! (Old version)
On the light curtain, the white-haired figure who burned the entire world for his only sister, along with his last satisfied smile, slowly dissipated into the endless darkness.
The final verdict, “His crime was love; his action was justice,” is like a brand, deeply engraved in the soul of every audience member.
The shock and repercussions it brought took a long time to subside.
Every corner of Fuyuki City fell into a heavy silence.
In the warehouse of the Emiya residence, Emiya Shirou was still standing, his fists clenched, and the fire in his eyes seemed to burn away all the confusion in the future.
In the basement workshop of the Tohsaka residence, Tohsaka Rin covered her face with her hands, not wanting anyone to see her red eyes.
In the Einzbern’s forest castle, Illya’s crying has not yet completely stopped.
In the ancient castle in Germany, Emiya Kiritsugu made the decision to give up the Holy Grail, and he felt as if he had thrown off the shackles of his life.
On the top of the tall building, even the lonely hero king fell into a rare long silence.
In this silence, the dark light curtain seemed to never give people a chance to breathe and lit up again without any warning.
This time, the background color of the light curtain was no longer the sacred gold, nor the cold pure white.
It was a dark purple that seemed ominous.
A new line of words, seemingly carrying a curse, slowly emerged.
[Third Inventory Subject: Shirou Emiya (Parallel World Coordinates: No. ███)][Subtitle: The holy cloth stained with darkness, a butcher’s knife wielded by one man.]Everyone’s pupils suddenly shrank.
It’s still Emiya Shirou.
Is this damn light curtain in conflict with this man?
The heroic spirit Emiya’s ideals are shattered, and Miyu’s brother chooses redemption. Each story is heavy enough to crush one’s mind.
And this third time, where will it be pressed?
Darkness, butcher knife.
These words, filled with ominousness and sin, made the people, who had just found a little comfort from the previous story, feel their hearts sink to the bottom again.
This time, what awaits them will be a cruel reality.
[Screen opens: Our first encounter wasn’t at the Emiya residence]Above the light curtain, the purple text disappeared.
It was not a battlefield filled with mountains of corpses and seas of blood, nor was it a ruin where doomsday was approaching.
The location is the playground of Hogunhara Academy.
Time was an extremely ordinary evening several years ago.
A red-haired boy who looked only like a junior high school student and much younger than he is now was practicing alone in the high jump field.
He took a running start and jumped again and again.
Then he hit the bar again and again and fell heavily on the soft mat.
Sweat had already soaked through his white sportswear, which stuck tightly to his body.
Every time he stood up, you could see the corners of his mouth twitching slightly due to muscle pain.
But he didn’t stop.
Those amber eyes burned with an innate, almost paranoid stubbornness.
It was as if he was not challenging the horizontal bar, but the impossible fate itself.
And in an inconspicuous corner of the playground, under the shade of a tree.
An equally young black-haired girl with a purple ribbon was silently watching all this while holding her schoolbag.
Her eyes were empty and blank at first, as if she was indifferent to everything in the world.
But as the young man failed again and again, and got up again and again, a faint light appeared in her empty amethyst eyes for the first time.
It was as if she saw something she had never seen before, something called hope.
Finally, after failing for who knows how many times.
The boy let out an unwilling roar and used up his last bit of strength to leap forward.
This time, his body miraculously brushed the edge of the crossbar and flew past.
He fell heavily on the mat, gasping for breath, looking at the sky dyed red by the setting sun, a pure smile of incomparable relief appeared on his face.
It was at that moment that he seemed to have exhausted all his strength and noticed the small figure in the corner who had been watching him.
That was the first time they looked into each other’s eyes.
The picture freezes at this point.
Chain Reaction: The Forgotten Starting Point
Shirou Emiya was stunned when he saw his young self sweating in the picture.
“This…this was when I was in junior high school, practicing high jump?”
He scratched his head, his face full of confusion and unconcealable shyness.
“That seems to be the case. Why was I so stubborn back then, for a project I wasn’t good at at all?”
His memory was a little vague, he only remembered that it seemed to be for a physical test.
But his voice stopped abruptly when he saw the figure of the purple-haired girl in the corner.
“……cherry?”
He uttered a whisper of disbelief.
“So, at that time, Ying was looking at me.”
He had no impression at all.
In his memory, he and Sakura became acquainted when Sister Fuji first brought her home to cook.
It turned out that before that, on that evening that she had long forgotten, they had already had such an intersection, which only she remembered.
For some reason, looking at the girl in the picture whose eyes changed from empty to glimmering, an inexplicable warmth welled up in his heart.
And a deep sense of guilt for having forgotten.
In a dark, damp, and foul-smelling underground insect room.
The moment Sakura Matou saw the playground, her body trembled violently like a frightened deer.
She subconsciously buried her face deeply between her knees, and her slender shoulders trembled with excitement.
That was the only precious secret in her life, one that did not belong to the Matou family but belonged only to herself.
It was the light of hope that I saw for the first time amidst the endless darkness and pain of being eaten by insects.
It was that clumsy, stubborn, and never-giving-up figure who, in a way he himself didn’t even know, pulled her heart, which had long since sunk into the quagmire of despair, out of the quagmire.
She never told anyone about it.
She also thought that this would be a little happiness buried deep in her heart forever.
She never imagined that this small redemption that belonged only to her would be displayed in front of the whole world in such a way that could be called a public execution.
Shame, panic, fear.
And a hint of sweetness that can’t be suppressed no matter what.
All kinds of emotions intertwined in her heart, making her mind blank.
In the underground workshop, Toosaka Rin folded her arms, looking at the youthful scene on the screen, her beautiful eyebrows slightly raised.
“Ha, so the root is here.”
There was a hint of sudden realization in her tone.
“I was wondering, Sakura is such an introvert, how could she be so close to that overly nice guy Emiya-san for no reason?”
“So, there’s a prequel to this story where a hero saves a beauty.”
Of course, the heroic act of saving the beauty she mentioned didn’t really mean saving anything.
But she understood.
She understood better than anyone how deadly poison even a ray of pure light from the outside world could be to a person in hell.
The stubborn and never-giving-up Shirou Emiya, without even knowing it, became the only spiritual support for his poor sister.
“He’s truly a sinful man, radiating hormones from the inside out.”
She snorted, but the corners of her mouth rose uncontrollably into an arc that she herself didn’t even notice.
Saber stood quietly beside Shirou, looking at the boy in the picture who was constantly challenging his limits.
Her face showed an extremely solemn expression of approval.
“No matter how difficult the situation is, no matter how many times you fail, never give up until you achieve your goal.”
She said in a calm yet powerful tone.
“Master, you have always possessed the most important qualities to become an outstanding hero.”
She didn’t understand the vague feelings between young boys and girls.
But she could understand how dazzling and attractive that steel-like will was to a person in despair.
It’s like the first lighthouse a lost sailor sees in the endless dark ocean.
“Tsk, so boring.”
In the luxurious room, the silver-haired Illyasviel puffed up her cheeks with a lack of interest at the sight of this overly innocent scene.
“Is this another little girl’s self-admiring drama?”
She tilted her head, her red eyes full of confusion and disdain.
“Just because that idiot was jumping around there, that girl named Sakura fell in love with him?”
“Berserker, human emotions are truly cheap and fragile.”
She completely couldn’t understand this kind of emotion based on longing.
To her, it was just the dreary prelude to another doomed tragedy.
“Come in, come in, I want to see a river of blood.”
“You see, Kiritsugu, Shirou was born this way.”
Irisviel looked at the scene, a very gentle and proud smile on her face.
“He might not even realize it himself.”
“But his hard work and his determination to never give up can become a light that illuminates others.”
Emiya Kiritsugu remained silent and said nothing.
His hawk-like eyes flickered with an extremely complex expression.
He saw qualities in the boy that were completely different from his own.
I am an extreme utilitarian who can abandon all processes and pursue the highest efficiency in order to achieve the ultimate goal of saving the world.
However, Shirou would willingly repeat failure a thousand or ten thousand times for a goal that seems meaningless to others.
He had always believed that this was a fatal weakness that would hinder justice.
But now the light curtain is telling him that it is this stupidity that he despises that has the warm power that can attract people’s hearts and become hope, which his cold correctness can never possess.
He uttered an incomprehensible hum.
In the luxurious suite on the top floor, Hero King Gilgamesh yawned gracefully.
The golden wine swayed slightly in the glass in his hand.
“The foreplay was too long.”
He had no interest in this kind of immature and mundane emotional entanglement between mortals.
To him, it was as irritating as being forced to watch two farmers ogling each other in a field before a grand fight.
“Hurry up and present the Sorrow and Destruction.”
“My patience has its limits.”
[Scene change: Promise in the rain, the beginning of daily life]The scene suddenly changed as if it heard the Hero King’s urging.
No longer a playground at dusk.
It was at the school gate in the evening when it was drizzling.
In junior high school, Shirou Emiya was holding a black umbrella and preparing to go home.
Under the eaves of the teaching building, the purple-haired girl was standing there alone, holding her schoolbag, looking at the rain outside, at a loss.
She didn’t bring an umbrella.
Shirou hesitated for a moment as he looked at her thin figure that looked like it would be blown away by the wind at any moment.
Finally, he sighed and walked over.
He handed the umbrella in his hand to her.
“…Matou-san?”
“…Ah, Emiya…Emiya-senpai.”
The girl was startled by the sudden sound and looked up with a panic on her face.
The location was the kitchen of the Emiya family, which was very familiar to everyone.
It’s already a year later.
Fujimura Taiga, the energetic English teacher with short orange hair, pushed Sakura in front of Shirou like a mountain king.
“Shirou, look, I found you a super reliable helper.”
“This is Sakura, the child of the Matou family.”
“Because you’ve been getting injured a lot lately, I asked her to come over more often to help with cooking and to supervise you.”
“…Teng-nii, please don’t talk to yourself like this all the time.”
Shirou covered his forehead with his hands in frustration.
Sakura, who was pushed to the front by Sister Fuji, nervously clutched the corner of her clothes and bowed deeply to Shirou.
“Senior, please give me more guidance in the future.”
The girl’s voice was still timid, as if with a barely perceptible tremor.
From then on, a year-long warm daily life belonging to the two of them began.
On the light curtain, the picture is like a flowing picture book.
In the early morning, when Shirou opened the door to the entrance, he would always see the petite figure waiting there.
“Good morning, Senior.”
In the evening, in the spacious kitchen, two people would put on aprons, one would process the ingredients while the other would wash the dishes, preparing a sumptuous dinner in a silent yet harmonious atmosphere.
Late at night, when Shirou dragged his exhausted body out of the warehouse after finishing his self-destructive magic training, he would always find a pot of steaming warm barley tea quietly placed at the door of the cold warehouse.
There were no extra words on the light curtain.
There are only the daily scenes that are as plain as a stream yet extremely warm.
It seems that the cruel and tragic future full of betrayal, killing and destruction that was previously envisioned was just a distant and unreal nightmare.
This world is the most ordinary and happiest life that an ordinary boy like Emiya Shirou should have.
Chapter 19: This warmth was stolen! Sakura, the happiest and most terrifying time! (Old version)
Shirou Emiya looked at these scenes that were all too familiar to him, and an uncontrollable gentle smile of nostalgia appeared on his face.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
He spoke softly as if to himself.
“This year has been really fun.”
“Ying, she really helped me a lot.”
“If it weren’t for her, I probably wouldn’t even have enough to eat.”
For him, all of this has long been taken for granted and an indispensable part of life.
He never imagined that behind this daily life that he cherished so much, there was such a deep darkness hidden.
Sakura curled up even tighter.
The light is too dazzling.
It was so warm, so warm that it made her body, which had long been accustomed to darkness and cold, feel a burning pain.
Every scene in the picture represents the happiest and most luxurious time in her life.
It was her only small haven where she could escape briefly from that cold, dirty hell filled with bugs and despair and breathe deeply.
She greedily and almost humbly enjoyed the warmth that did not belong to her.
At the same time, this warmth also brings a deep fear to my bones.
Because she knows.
She knows better than anyone.
It’s all fake.
She stole them all from her sister.
My dirty, rotten body, which is eaten away by countless insects, is not worthy of this clean sunshine.
This happiness is like a beautiful castle built with sand.
It only takes a small gust of wind and waves to collapse without a trace in an instant.
She sat there quietly, looking at her sister in the picture, who was in the Emiya family’s kitchen, with a smile of genuine happiness that she had never seen before.
Think about it again, when this daily routine ends and she returns to the devil’s cave called Matou, what will she have to face?
Her heart felt like it was being gripped by an invisible hand, and it hurt so much that she couldn’t breathe.
“So, that’s how it is.”
She murmured to herself in a voice that was almost dreamy.
“Emiya-kun, without even knowing it, he became Sakura’s only salvation.”
However, Toosaka Rin knew it better than anyone else.
How fragile and dangerous this redemption is.
It was based entirely on Emiya Shirou’s ignorance.
Once that hopeless pushover knows the truth.
Once he knew what kind of filthy and evil thing was living in Sakura’s body.
Will he still smile at her without any reservations like he does now?
Would he still allow her to prepare dinner for him with her hands that had long been contaminated?
An unprecedented strong sense of uneasiness, like a poisonous snake, grabbed Lin’s heart.
“That’s great.”
Irisviel looked at this warm and peaceful scene and sighed sincerely.
“There is no such thing as the Holy Grail War.”
“Shirou should be able to live an ordinary and happy life with this girl forever.”
Emiya Kiritsugu’s face, as hard as ice, showed no emotion at all.
His eyes were still cold and sharp.
“A false sense of peace.”
With just four words, he made the cruelest judgment on this daily life that was so beautiful in Irisviel’s eyes.
“The foundation of this daily routine is too fragile.”
“It only takes the slightest external force to completely collapse in an instant.”
He knows it better than anyone.
For the magician living on the inside, daily life is always just a very thin disguise.
And war is their eternal destiny.
Illya looked at Shirou and Sakura, who were so close to each other, like a real family.
The familiar complex emotion of jealousy and disdain surged in her heart again.
“Hmph, boring house-playing.”
She curled her lips and muttered softly.
“Real family isn’t like this.”
“Right, Berserker.”
She turned around and looked at the giant who was as majestic as a mountain behind her, seeking approval.
The giant simply uttered a low, meaningless roar.
The Hero King Gilgamesh had already begun to impatiently tap the armrest of the expensive velvet sofa beneath him with his golden-armored fingers.
“Isn’t it over yet?”
“This soap opera is even more tasteless than plain water.”
“I am almost falling asleep.”
He just finished speaking.
The image on the screen suddenly changed, as if it had heard his expectation of brutality and destruction.
[Scene Change: Scars that cannot be ignored, truths that cannot be told]The picture no longer has the warm tones it had before.
Instead, it became a little gloomy.
A close-up was given to Sakura’s slender white wrist.
There was a purple scar that looked extremely hideous and could not be completely covered even with a long sleeve.
That’s not a scar that could be caused by a fall or a bump.
It looked more like the marks left by something that had clamped and bitten it hard.
Emiya Shirou, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, noticed this.
He stopped what he was doing and frowned.
“Ying, what’s wrong with your hand?”
He asked in a deep voice.
“Ah, this…”
A trace of unconcealable panic flashed across Ying’s face.
She subconsciously pulled her hand back and hid it behind her as if she had been electrocuted.
“Nothing… nothing, I just accidentally fell down the stairs at home a few days ago.”
She lowered her head and used the same excuse that had been shown on the screen countless times before to get away with it.
Shirou Emiya looked at her evasive eyes and unnatural movements and fell silent.
This time, he did not choose to believe it easily as he did before.
The seeds of doubt have been planted.
But he didn’t know what to say.
Or rather, he didn’t dare to ask any further.
He could only express his concern in the most clumsy and powerless way.
“Really? Then you should be more careful at home next time.”
“Yes, senior.”
The girl’s voice was as thin as a mosquito’s.
A conversation that should have been in-depth was forcibly brought to an end in such a tacit and self-deceptive way.
But at this moment, the light curtain, in a manner almost like a public execution, printed out a line of explanatory text that was cold enough to pierce a person’s bone marrow.
【He noticed something unusual.】
【But he was afraid.】
He was afraid to delve into the dirty truth beneath the peaceful daily life.
Because he was afraid that once the abscess was uncovered, the warmth of home, which he had worked so hard to obtain, would vanish into thin air.
[This is his truest weakness as an ordinary person.][It was also the first unforgivable sin he committed in this tragedy.]Chain Reaction: The Shackles of Hypocrisy
Emiya Shirou’s body shook violently.
The color on his face drained away the moment he saw those words.
Afraid.
I’m scared.
crime.
He looked at himself in the picture who had chosen to turn a blind eye and deceive himself, and his heart felt like it was stabbed by a red-hot dagger.
yes.
Deep down in his heart, he had doubts and worries.
But he didn’t have the courage to take that crucial step.
I don’t have the courage to tear off the hypocritical disguise called daily life.
Because he was already used to Sakura’s presence.
Because he has become accustomed to the warmth of home that can fill his empty heart.
He is afraid of losing.
So, he chose to escape.
“I…I…”
He opened his mouth, but his throat seemed to be blocked by something and he couldn’t utter a word.
An unprecedented strong sense of self-loathing, like a flood bursting through a dam, instantly submerged him completely.
Saber looked at the boy beside her, who had fallen into a state of great self-denial after seeing her own weakness.
Her eyes were extremely complicated.
She did not say anything to blame him.
Because she understands.
She understood better than anyone the pain and helplessness of having to ignore many things in order to protect a crumbling daily life.
In order to protect the kingdom called Britain, which was about to fall apart, she chose to ignore Lancelot’s betrayal and the people’s complaints.
“Protecting comes at a price, Shirou.”
She spoke softly in a voice that was almost a sigh and extremely hoarse.
“Sometimes, that price is the courage to tear open the truth with your own hands.”
“And you failed to pay this price.”
“You coward.”
Toosaka Rin looked at the screen, her clenched white fingers turning white from excessive force.
Finally, she squeezed out these words from between her teeth.
There was no longer the condescending sarcasm in her voice.
Instead, there is a complex emotion mixed with disappointment and endless sorrow.
She was disappointed that Shirou Emiya, the man regarded as the only light by her sister, chose such a shameful escape at the most critical moment.
She felt even more sad for her sister, who placed her only hope on such a coward who didn’t even have the courage to reach out and uncover the truth.
“If at that time, you ask one more question.”
“If you cared about her a little more.”
“Will everything be different?”
She murmured to herself, and for the first time, her beautiful sapphire eyes revealed a cold emotion that was almost resentful towards Emiya Shirou.
Ying looked at the line of cold words that seemed like the final judgment, and her whole body felt as if she had fallen into an icy cave.
It turns out that the senior knew about it.
No, he didn’t know, he just noticed.
He noticed something unusual about himself.
But because he was afraid of losing this daily routine, he chose not to look or ask.
An indescribable great sorrow, like a tsunami, instantly overwhelmed her.
She doesn’t blame her predecessors.
How could she, how dare she, blame the only light in her life?
She only blames herself.
I can only blame myself for this dirty, filthy, and ominous existence.
Became a burden to the seniors.
It became the source of his weakness that prevented him from even touching the truth.
“I’m sorry, Senior.”
“sorry.”
She mouthed the words wordlessly, over and over again.
It was as if he wanted to crush himself in the sin he had brought upon himself.
“Look, Ellie.”
A cold smile, almost cruel, appeared on Emiya Kiritsugu’s face, as if confirming his own theory.
“This is the price of affection.”
“It will become the most deadly interference in your route judgment.”
“It will become the heaviest shackle that restricts your actions.”
“It will make you make the most foolish and wrong judgment at the most critical moment.”
He was like a cold-blooded teacher in a sterile laboratory, calmly observing his experimental subjects heading towards failure.
“If he had never developed any extraneous feelings for the girl from the beginning, and instead simply viewed her as a problem that needed to be solved.”
“Then he has already started investigating that old bug from the Matou family.”
Irisviel was crying and shaking her head frantically.
“No, Kiritsugu, that’s not weakness, that’s not a mistake.”
“That’s human nature.”
“Humanity arises from the desire to protect.”
“Ha, I’ll tell you what I’ll tell you.”
Seeing this, Illya let out a sharp, gloating laugh.
“What kind of righteous partner? In the end, he’s still a coward who doesn’t even dare to save the people around him.”
“You can’t even face the truth, and yet you’re talking about saving the world? It’s really making me laugh to death.”
She just wanted to see it.
It is to see how the hypocritical and ridiculous kindness of the man chosen by Kiritsugu is torn to pieces bit by bit by the cruel reality.
“Hmph, the struggles of boring mortals.”
Gilgamesh had lost interest in even evaluating this.
In his opinion, stopping because of fear is a natural behavior of the weak.
Not worth mentioning at all.
He just looked forward to it.
I look forward to the sweet fruit full of wailing and destruction that will eventually be produced from the seeds sown out of weakness.
And the result was soon presented to everyone in the most direct and cruel way.
[Scene Change: Holy Grail War breaks out, darkness descends]The Emiya family at night.
In the kitchen, under the warm light, Ying was cutting vegetables.
Suddenly, her body trembled violently.
An ominous, cursed, dark magic flashed past the Command Seal on her arm like a poisonous snake.
“……Well.”
She covered her arm in pain, and her face turned pale in an instant.
“It’s started… huh?”
at the same time.
In the dark, disgusting underground insect room of the Matou family, filled with countless wriggling insects.
An old man who was as dry as a mummy and only had skin and bones left – Matou Zouken, let out a joyful and unpleasant laugh like a night owl.
“Hehe, the Holy Grail War has begun.”
“Ying, my lovely granddaughter.”
“It’s time for the precious fragment of the Lesser Holy Grail within you to begin functioning.”
“Just let me enjoy it.”
“You and your wonderful sister, watching each other kill each other beautifully.”
Chapter 20 Sisters Killing Each Other! Rin Tohsaka’s Greatest Regret in Life! When Sakura said this, Shirou completely collapsed! (Old Version)
The screen switches again.
It’s a deserted street at night.
On his way home from work, Shirou Emiya accidentally witnessed an extraordinary battle between Servants.
He was discovered by the blue Lancer.
Being hunted down and silenced.
Escaped back home.
In the warehouse where he trained day and night, he unexpectedly summoned the most outstanding Servant, Saber, who was wearing the blue knight’s skirt armor.
All of this is exactly the same as the experience in the main world.
When he walked out of the warehouse with Saber, feeling nervous and uneasy, ready to face his first battle as a Master.
What he saw was not just the Lancer holding the red magic gun and looking unhappy.
There was another person, the one he least wanted to see and the one he could never imagine appearing here.
——Sakura Matou.
She just stood there quietly.
The look in his eyes was more empty and numb than Shirou had ever seen before.
Beside her, a tall, blindfolded, long purple-haired female heroic spirit, full of bewitching charm—Rider—was holding a strange scythe with a spike at the front, emitting a cold murderous intent.
And at Sakura’s feet, the figure that everyone was very familiar with – Rin Tohsaka, wearing a red top and twin ponytails, was lying in a pool of blood, her body covered in blood, her life or death unknown.
The moment Emiya Shirou saw this scene, his brain went completely blank.
“Why.”
Sakura, who was standing there, slowly raised her head.
There was no expression on her face.
There was no sadness, no joy, and no guilt for hurting his sister.
She just looked at him coldly, as if she was looking at a complete stranger.
Then, she slowly raised the white hand engraved with the Command Seal.
With a tone as cold and emotionless as a puppet, he gave the cruelest order to Rider beside him.
“Kill them.”
[The first day, the end: the enemy I least want to see, the betrayal I cannot understand.]Chain Reaction: Unacceptable Reality
“It’s a lie…it’s a lie.”
Shirou Emiya looked at the scene on the screen that was a mixture of absurdity and nightmare, and let out a heart-wrenching cry of disbelief.
Sakura is the Master.
The timid Sakura who would tremble with fear even at horror movies turned out to be a Master participating in the Holy Grail War.
That purple-haired Rider who exudes a terrifying aura is Sakura’s Servant.
Moreover, she actually attacked Rin.
He also injured Lin into that state.
“No, that’s impossible. There must be something wrong.”
He shook his head frantically, his body moving backwards due to excessive excitement, as if trying to escape from the reality that he could not accept.
“How could Sakura be a magician? How could she possibly hurt Rin? Aren’t they best friends?”
A series of confusing questions, like countless heavy hammers, hit his heart hard.
His heart, which was already suffering from his own weakness, was on the verge of collapse at this moment.
The moment the murderous aura appeared, Saber had already clenched the invisible sword in her hand, protecting Shirou behind her.
Her emerald eyes, like the purest lake, were now fixed on Rider in the picture, her face filled with unprecedented vigilance and solemnity.
“I see, so this is the hidden seventh Master?”
Her voice was low and chilling.
“And judging by the flow of magic power in her body, the connection between her and the Servant beside her is very strong, even far exceeding that of an ordinary Master.”
“Master, wake up.”
She felt the violent emotional fluctuations of the young man behind her and shouted in a deep voice that was almost a scolding.
“The girl standing before you is far more dangerous than you imagine.”
“She is our enemy.”
As a soldier, she had neither the time nor the energy to think about what was hidden behind it.
She only knows how to judge and execute.
And the Sakura Matou in front of him is undoubtedly the enemy who must be eliminated.
When Toosaka Rin saw herself lying at Sakura’s feet covered in blood, she was stunned for a moment.
Then, an indescribable complex emotion, a mixture of anger, sadness, and a hint of cold understanding, surged into her heart.
“Matou Zouken.”
She gritted her teeth and squeezed out the name she hated most in her life.
“Sure enough, it was you who did this.”
She knew better than anyone what kind of vicious thing that old immortal monster had planted in Sakura’s body.
She also knew better than anyone how tragically the heart of a girl who should have been innocent could be twisted in the hell on earth that was the Matou family.
She doesn’t hate Sakura.
How could she possibly hate her only poor sister?
She just hated.
He only hated the person behind the scene who turned his sister into this puppet who couldn’t even express her emotions.
He also hated his father who had sent his sister to hell with his own hands because of the so-called fate of a magician.
What’s more, I hate myself for being so incompetent that I couldn’t rescue my sister from that hell sooner because of my weakness even though I knew everything.
“ah.”
When Sakura saw that she had hurt her most admired and envied sister into that state with her own hands.
When she heard herself giving the order to kill her senior in that cold and unfamiliar voice.
A short and suppressed cry burst out from her throat.
The world seemed to have lost all colors and sounds at this moment.
No, it’s not.
I don’t, I don’t want to.
She unconsciously stretched out her sin-stained hands, wanting to touch the bright red figure lying in a pool of blood above the light curtain.
Buzz.
The countless imprinted worms that had been dormant in the body for eleven years began to wriggle and gnaw madly and greedily because of the host’s intense emotional fluctuations that were almost leading to collapse.
“Hehehe, hehehe.”
In the corner, Zouken Matou’s dry laughter, like a devil crawling out of hell, sounded faintly.
“See, Sakura?”
“This is your fate.”
“Destroy the person you admire most with your own hands.”
“Kill the person you love most with your own hands.”
“Then I, old as I am, will transform you into the most perfect Holy Grail.”
“Internal fighting?”
Emiya Kiritsugu calmly analyzed the battle situation in front of him with an emotionless look, as if he was reading a battle report.
“The legitimate heir of the Tōsaka family, and the second daughter adopted into the Matou family.”
“A fateful duel over the Holy Grail.”
“It’s the kind of wicked, ironic, and humorous play that the Holy Grail War loves to stage.”
He didn’t feel anything about it.
The killing of each other by magicians is the norm in this world.
“But, but, Ying…”
Irisviel, however, could not remain calm like him. She looked at the girl with empty eyes who looked like a doll, and her heart ached beyond words.
“She must be being controlled, Kiritsugu. Look into her eyes. That’s not her own will at all.”
“She must have been controlled by that old monster called Zang Yan.”
“Oh, that’s interesting.”
When Illya saw this scene, her ruby-red eyes showed an expression of interest, like a cat finding a ball of yarn.
“Sisters killing each other. I love watching this kind of drama the most.”
“But that one called Sakura looks so weak. Her eyes are empty and lifeless, like a broken doll.”
She tilted her head, analyzing with pure, childlike curiosity devoid of any notion of good or evil.
“Is he being manipulated by that bug-ridden old man hiding behind the scenes? What a boring trick.”
“Hmph, finally, it’s finally starting to get interesting.”
The corner of Hero King Gilgamesh’s mouth curled up in a cruel yet joyful arc.
He lazily stood up from the throne and sat up slightly.
“Betrayal, murder, and sisters turning against each other.”
“This is worthy of being my entertainment.”
His scarlet snake eyes looked at the doll-like purple-haired girl with great interest.
“Just let this king enjoy it.”
“You pathetic puppet being manipulated by lowly worms.”
“What kind of ugly yet beautiful dance of death can you perform for me?”
[Scene Change: Decision on a Rainy Night, Collapse of Ideals]Above the light curtain, the brutal battle that should have broken out did not actually begin.
Just as Saber and Rider were about to clash, a more ominous and terrifying presence appeared.
——A black shadow.
It is like a greedy mouth reaching out from hell.
It easily devoured the unsuspecting Lancer.
Even the powerful Saber was severely damaged by it.
Emiya Shirou, carrying the severely injured Rin and Saber, whose magic power was almost exhausted, escaped from that nightmare encounter and returned to his home with difficulty.
For the next few days, the entire Fuyuki City was shrouded in the terror of that invisible shadow.
Powerful Servants disappeared one after another as if they had evaporated from the face of the earth.
In the city, mysterious and vicious murders began to occur one after another, in which ordinary people were instantly drained of all their energy.
But Sakura Matou still acted as if nothing had happened.
Arriving at Emiya’s house on time every day.
It was as if the confrontation that night, filled with bloodshed and betrayal, was really just an unreal nightmare.
She still prepared three meals for Shirou gently.
She still carefully took care of the empty Japanese-style house for him.
But her face became paler day by day.
Her eyes became emptier day by day.
Until that night when it was pouring rain.
Sakura could no longer suppress the black magic within her that had already become one with her.
For the first time, she revealed her ugly and true face as the Master of Shadow in front of Shirou Emiya.
She knelt down in the rain in pain and confessed everything to Shirou.
He confessed that he was the real murderer who kept devouring heroic spirits and killing innocent people.
He confessed all the inhuman tortures he had endured in the hell-like insect room of the Matou family over the past eleven years.
He confessed his twisted and dirty heart that had long been completely polluted by jealousy, resentment and despair.
“Senior, I’m a dirty, broken girl.”
“So, please, kill me.”
“Before I make too many, too many irreparable mistakes.”
She knelt in the cold, muddy rain and made the most humble and desperate plea to the only light in her life.
As expected, Tousaka Rin appeared before them with her Servant Archer.
Lin’s face was filled with pain and determination that ordinary people could not imagine.
“Emiya-san, you should understand this better than anyone else.”
“She’s not my sister anymore.”
“She is the embodiment of all the evil in this world, a walking disaster that will destroy the entire Fuyuki City.”
“As magicians protecting this city, we must completely eliminate her here.”
Rin slowly raised her hand, her white fingertips condensing deadly magic light bullets that could easily penetrate people’s hearts.
The rain is getting heavier.
The cold rain mixed with the girl’s tears seemed to completely drown the entire world.
Emiya Shirou stood quietly in the center of the storm that engulfed his entire world.
On one side, there was his beloved girl, who was kneeling on the ground and begging him to die in pain. He had once vowed to protect her with his whole life.
On the other side are former companions who represent correctness, justice, and saving the majority of people.
And the heavy ideal of being a comrade of justice that he inherited from his adoptive father, Emiya Kiritsugu.
How should he choose.
The light screen gave him a huge close-up of his face.
Pain, struggle, confusion, despair.
All the emotions were madly intertwined and torn apart on his still young face.
Finally, he slowly raised his head.
His eyes became clearer and more determined than ever before.
He didn’t look at Rin, who represented what was right.
Nor did he go to see Archer, the ideal figure.
He just walked step by step with great determination to the girl who was kneeling in the rain and had already given up hope.
He silently took off his coat which had been soaked by the rain.
Gently draped over the shivering petite body.
Then, he raised his head and looked at the girl who was as dazzling as a gem and whom he had once admired so much.
With a voice that seemed to be shouting out his entire soul, he announced his final answer.
“Yes, you are right, Toosaka.”
“To save the hundreds of thousands of innocent people in this city.”
“Sacrifice Sakura as a person.”
“No matter how you look at it, this kind of thing is absolutely right and just.”
“But yeah.”
He suddenly opened his arms and hugged the warm body that had already burst into tears tightly in his arms.
He used his not-so-broad back to block the deadly magic light bullet.
“I have already made up my mind.”
“I will only be Sakura’s righteous partner.”
[Ideal farewell: I will betray the whole world for you.]Chapter 21 “I will only be Sakura’s partner of justice!” Betray the whole world! Emiya Shirou, you are finally crazy (old version)
The rain is still falling.
On the light curtain, the red-haired boy used his not-so-broad back to block the righteousness and justice of the entire world for the girl in his arms who had already burst into tears.
That earth-shattering declaration still echoes in everyone’s ears.
I will only be Sakura’s righteous partner!
Ideals are completely gone at this moment.
The road stretches into endless darkness beneath my feet.
Rin Tohsaka’s light bullet, which was filled with huge magical power, was never fired.
She just looked deeply at the man who chose to betray her, and her sister who was protected by him, with an extremely complicated look.
Then, she took Archer and disappeared silently into the rain.
The confrontation on the rainy night ended in such an almost silent way.
But everyone knows.
This is not the end.
This is just the beginning of a more brutal and crazy war.
The location was back to the living room of the Emiya family, which was supposed to be a warm haven.
[Screen changes: Blood-stained holy cloth, broken body]The living room was brightly lit.
But the atmosphere was so oppressive that it was suffocating.
After treating Sakura’s wounds and comforting her to sleep, Shirou Emiya came to the living room alone.
There was something placed in front of him.
A bright red holy cloth that belonged to the red-robed archer, which was very familiar to everyone.
Covered beneath the holy shroud is a bronze arm that is full of power yet exudes an ominous aura.
It was the only relic left by Archer, who was supposed to have perished in the battle with Berserker.
Shirou Emiya looked at the arm, his eyes becoming extremely determined in an instant.
He knew that with only his half-baked magic, he couldn’t even save Sakura from the curse of the Holy Grail, let alone withstand the next shadow attack.
He needs strength.
A force powerful enough to take on the entire world.
Even if that power comes from the gift of the devil.
Even if the price is everything I have.
He stretched out his left arm.
Then, he used a knife that had been made extremely sharp by his strengthening magic to cut his shoulder fiercely.
Blood gushed out.
He actually wanted to cut off his own arm alive, and then transplant the holy cloth belonging to the heroic spirit onto his own body.
This is a crazy taboo ritual that transcends all magical theory.
The picture gave a close-up of his face.
Sweat mixed with blood slid down his forehead.
His teeth were chattering from the pain he was enduring, and his lips were already bloody from being bitten by himself.
But his eyes did not waver in the slightest.
Only hellish awareness.
A flash of light.
The arm, filled with an ominous aura, was connected to his bloody shoulder.
The next second, unimaginable magical power and vast memories that did not belong to him rushed into his brain like a flood that broke through a dam.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
A shrill, inhuman scream erupted from his throat.
He fell to the ground, his whole body twitching violently as if he had been thrown into a furnace.
Countless cyan magic circuits flickered on and off crazily on his skin like red-hot irons.
A line of blood-red text filled with warnings slowly emerged above the light curtain.
[Warning: This is a one-way ticket to hell.]【Once you embark on this journey, there is no turning back.】
Chain Reaction: Incomprehensible Madness, Unbearable Sin
Shirou Emiya looked at himself in the picture, who was using a method that was almost self-harming to gain power, and he felt like he was struck by lightning.
Is that Archer’s arm?
Did I transplant it onto myself?
He subconsciously looked at his left arm, and a phantom pain that penetrated deep into his bones almost made him faint on the spot.
What a crazy and reckless behavior that is.
Forcibly grafting a spiritual body belonging to a heroic spirit that is completely different from oneself onto the body of an ordinary human.
This isn’t magic at all.
This is suicide in its purest form.
Why…why.
Why do we have to go to this extent?
He really couldn’t understand how desperate he was to make such a crazy choice.
Master!
The moment Saber saw that scene, she let out a roar filled with endless anger and sorrow.
What are you doing? Stop it!
For the first time, a look of near fear appeared on her beautiful face, which was always calm and composed.
That is not your power.
That is the curse of a Heroic Spirit completely different from you.
It will burn your magic circuits, your nerves, your soul from the inside out like the most vicious poison.
As a Heroic Spirit, she knew better than anyone what a complete and independent spirit core meant to a Servant.
And Emiya Shirou, this hopelessly foolish boy, actually tried to use his body, which was as fragile as a glass cup, to carry part of the soul core of another Heroic Spirit.
This is no longer something that can be described as stupid.
This is the most fundamental blasphemy against the existence of the heroic spirit.
It is also the most complete betrayal of one’s own life.
He is crazy!
The moment Toosaka Rin saw Emiya Shirou take out a knife and cut her arm, she jumped up from her seat and screamed hysterically.
This idiot, this madman, does he even know what he is doing?
As a top magician, she understood better than anyone else what this action meant.
That is the arm of a Heroic Spirit, a collection of spirit particles, pure magic itself.
If you connect it to a living human, his body will instantly collapse because it cannot bear it.
His brain would be completely blown up by the huge amount of memories that did not belong to him.
His soul will be completely covered and eroded by Archer’s ego.
He… he was using the most painful and slowest method to completely erase himself from Emiya Shirou’s existence.
She roared incoherently.
But when she saw that man enduring hellish pain with no trace of regret in his eyes, her voice choked uncontrollably.
For Sakura?
For my disappointing sister.
Is it worth it, you big fool.
When Sakura saw that her senior had made such a crazy and tragic self-sacrifice for her, her whole body was trembling.
When she heard the inhuman screams of pain from her senior, she could hardly breathe.
Her heart, which had already been infused with a ray of light because of being chosen, was now completely submerged by the deeper and heavier darkness called sin.
No, don’t.
She stretched out her hand, wanting to touch the figure struggling in pain on the ground above the light curtain, tears rolling down her face like pearls from a broken string.
No, senior.
No, for someone like me.
No, don’t hurt yourself anymore.
It was my fault.
It’s all my fault.
If it weren’t for this filthy and ominous existence like me, Senior wouldn’t have to endure such pain.
He should have had the brightest and happiest future.
And now, all of this has been destroyed by my own hands.
An incomparable self-loathing that was enough to completely devour her seized upon her already tattered soul.
Hmm, a pretty reasonable choice.
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at his son who had completed his self-transformation in pain, and for the first time, a cold smile that was almost approval appeared on his face that had been frozen for thousands of years.
Its own functions can no longer meet the needs of the task.
Therefore, we choose to discard useless parts and replace them with more powerful external weapons.
Although the price is one’s own lifespan and stability of existence.
But to achieve the short-term, top-priority goal of saving Sakura Matou, this cost-benefit analysis is entirely valid.
He used an extreme, emotionless utilitarian logic to instantly analyze and approve of Shirou’s behavior.
This is exactly the way of Kiritsugu that he is best at and believes in the most.
What are you talking about, Kiritsugu!
Irisviel could no longer bear it, she screamed with all her strength, tears streaming down her face.
That’s not some part, that’s Shirou’s own body.
That’s not a weapon, it’s a curse that will devour him.
Can’t you see that the child is heading towards destruction step by step for your damn ideals?
Illya looked at Shirou Emiya who was screaming in pain on the ground.
All the smiles disappeared from her innocent and lovely face.
Instead, there was an extremely complicated expression, a mixture of gloating and a hint of irritation that she herself was not even aware of.
Humph, that’s really ugly.
She curled her lips.
For the sake of a woman, he turned himself into this miserable half-human, half-ghost appearance.
Kiritsugu, the person you chose is truly a complete waste.
But for some reason, she didn’t feel any pleasure of revenge in her heart.
Instead, it felt like something was blocking it and it was very uncomfortable.
Haha, hahahahahahahaha!
The Hero King Gilgamesh watched this scene and laughed loudly with contempt and mockery.
It’s extremely ugly and extremely funny.
His scarlet snake eyes were filled with undisguised contempt.
I thought your willingness to betray the world for one person would make you so interesting.
In the end, I still can’t rely on my own strength.
I actually have to beg like a beggar for the remnants of another fake.
He attached the arm of a long-dead loser to his own body in a vain attempt to defy fate.
Emiya Shirou, you are an ugly, patched-up monster. You are a lowly bastard who is not even worthy of my king’s second glance.
[Scene Change: Death Battle on the Snowfield, King’s Farewell]On the light curtain, the picture switched again.
The location is the quiet snow-covered mountains behind Liudong Temple.
Shirou Emiya was wearing thin clothes and standing alone in the snow.
His left arm was tightly wrapped in the bright red holy cloth.
And in front of him, a figure that made everyone breathless slowly walked out from the darkness.
It was a girl wearing a pitch-black Gothic metal skirt armor.
Her skin was so pale that there was no trace of blood.
Her hair also lost its dazzling golden color and turned into a dull gray.
The only thing that remains unchanged is that exquisite face that is still as beautiful as if it were created by God.
And those emerald eyes that should have been like the purest lake, now turned into golden eyes like lava, full of tyranny and destruction.
In her hand, she held a pitch-black holy sword that was completely tainted by black magic.
SaberAlter.
A figure consumed by shadows, tainted by all the evils of this world.
The once noble and glorious King of Knights has now completely degenerated into a cold-blooded tyrant who only knows how to execute orders to kill.
Saber.
Shirou Emiya looked at the figure in front of him who was both the most familiar and the most unfamiliar to him.
He squeezed out syllable by syllable from between his teeth the name he had called out countless times in his dreams.
The girl simply raised the pitch-black holy sword in her hand with an expressionless face.
In a cold tone without any emotion, his death sentence was pronounced.
You are the enemy.
The battle breaks out!
Emiya Shirou untied the bright red holy cloth on his left arm.
TraceOn!
He roared, completely releasing the forbidden power that belonged to Archer.
He projected the pair of black and white husband and wife swords that Archer was best at.
He fought fiercely with the dark Knight King who wielded the black holy sword.
Every collision between swords stirred up a violent wind of magic, sweeping up snow all over the sky.
But the gap is too obvious.
SaberAlter possesses nearly infinite magical power from the Holy Grail.
Each of her swords carries a terrifying force that is enough to split mountains and break seas.
And every projection of Shirou Emiya, every swing of his sword, was madly burning his life, which was already dwindling.
His body was breaking down.
His consciousness was blurring.
But he still gritted his teeth and didn’t take a step back.
Because he knows.
This is his atonement.
It was his atonement for being Saber’s Master but failing to protect her.
It was also his final farewell to his naive ideals.
Finally, SaberAlter raised the holy sword in her hand.
The black magic power gathered on the sword like a storm.
ExcaliburMorgan (Sword of Promised Victory Black)!
The black light cannon, which was powerful enough to destroy everything, bombarded Emiya Shirou, who was already at the end of his strength.
At the same time, Shirou injected all of his dying soul into Archer’s arm.
RhoAias (Sevenfold Rings of Blazing Sky)!
A huge, legendary ultimate defensive treasure composed of seven petals of light suddenly unfolded in front of him.
But it’s useless.
The black light cannon easily tore apart the first, second, and third petals.
Just when the destructive light was about to completely devour him, Emiya Shirou used up his last bit of strength and fiercely stabbed out another projected Noble Phantasm that he had prepared in his other hand.
It was a gorgeous dagger filled with divine aura.
It stabbed at the King of Knights, whom he once admired and respected so much.
Phew.
The blood dyed the pure white snowfield red.
Chapter 22 I will kill my ideal with my own hands! Emiya Shirou, can you afford the price of sin?! (Old version)
[Death Battle Under the Snow: I will kill my ideal with my own hands.]When the words “I will only be Sakura’s partner of justice” resounded through the heavens and earth like thunder, Emiya Shirou felt as if he was struck by lightning and stood there in a daze.
He looked at himself in the picture, who had resolutely abandoned the rightness of the whole world in order to protect a promise.
He suddenly realized that all his previous confusion about his ideals, his fear about the tragic ending of the Heroic Spirit Emiya, and his shock about the extreme choice of his brother Miyu, seemed to have a third and completely different answer at this moment.
So, that’s how it is.
He subconsciously clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms, but he didn’t feel any pain.
For the first time, a fire of awareness ignited in his eyes, different from the fire inherited from his adoptive father and the fire of yearning for heroes. It belonged to Shirou Emiya as an individual and was enough to burn everything to ashes.
So, this is also a form of partner of justice.
Saber stood there quietly, looking at the figure who used his not-so-broad back to shield the purple-haired girl from the malice of the entire world.
Her emerald eyes were filled with unprecedented and extremely complex shock.
As a king, she couldn’t agree.
She absolutely does not agree with such behavior of disregarding the interests of the majority for personal gain.
This violated her most fundamental oath as king.
But as a knight, she couldn’t help but be moved by the pure loyalty that was shown to protect his only princess, even at the cost of making the whole world his enemy.
You are no longer a hero pursuing the kingly way, Shirou.
She spoke softly in an extremely hoarse tone that was almost a sigh.
You have chosen a domineering path that belongs only to you, full of thorns and sins.
She looked at the man who had blatantly betrayed her justice, the hopeless pushover whom she had once sneered at.
Watching him hold the sister whom he had cruelly decided to get rid of with his own hands tightly in his arms with an almost unreasonable attitude.
Her eyes were wet without her realizing it.
Fool.
She used all her strength to squeeze these two words out of her throat.
Her voice had a strong nasal tone that she herself was not aware of.
A complete, hopeless, and huge idiot.
She knew that from this moment on, this man named Emiya Shirou would become a complete enemy of her, Archer, and the common sense of the entire magician world.
He will bear the sins that should not be borne by him.
But for some reason, in her heart, besides the anger for being denied her correctness and the disappointment for being betrayed by her ideals, there was actually a sense of gratitude that even she herself could not understand.
Thank you.
When Sakura put on that warm, thick coat that seemed to be able to protect her from the wind and rain in the world, her heart trembled.
When that solid and powerful embrace, which seemed to be able to support the entire sky, held her cold body in its arms, she could no longer hold back.
Sakura’s heart, which had long sunk into the abyss of darkness and was filled with despair and self-loathing, seemed at this moment to be thrown into an eternal sun that was enough to light up the entire universe.
Tears flowed like a flood that could no longer be contained.
She stretched out her sinful hands and tightly grasped the cheap clothes in front of her that had long been soaked by the rain.
It was as if he had grasped the only and final salvation in his life.
senior.
Hahaha, hahahahahahahahaha.
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the son in the picture who had openly betrayed his lifelong ideals, and he smiled.
So that’s how it is.
He spent his entire life pursuing the greatest happiness of the cold and correct majority.
To this end, he abandoned his emotions, wore away his humanity, and turned himself into a killing machine capable of cold calculation.
As a result, this young man who was rescued from hell by him and inherited everything from him, gave an answer in the most unreasonable, incorrect and human way, which he himself could never give and would never dare to give.
Yes, Kiritsugu.
Irisviel, with tears in her eyes, hugged him tightly from behind, smiling with immense happiness.
This is what you first envisioned under the moonlight, the righteous companion who can save everyone, isn’t it?
Illya looked at the brother who was holding his sister tightly in his arms.
Her little heart, filled with hatred and jealousy, felt like it was pierced by an invisible red-hot needle.
I am not willing to accept this. I am so unwilling to accept this.
Why.
Why, the one being guarded so desperately wasn’t me.
Ha, that’s more like it, and that’s worthy of being my entertainment.
When the Hero King Gilgamesh saw this scene, a smile of great satisfaction appeared on his face.
Abandon the majority and choose the only one.
Abandoning justice and pursuing selfish desires.
This is the essence of love.
This is the true meaning of desire.
Compared to those hypocrites who keep talking about doing things for the world, this fool who dares to make the whole world his enemy for a woman is more pleasing to the king.
His scarlet snake eyes flickered with excitement, as if he was enjoying a top-notch opera.
Let me see how far your small yet arrogant consciousness can take you on this road full of thorns and sins.
[Screen changes: Holy Shroud stained with darkness, body in ruins]The confrontation on the rainy night ended with Toosaka Rin’s retreat.
But everyone knew that this was by no means the end, but the beginning of an even more brutal war.
The scene changed and the location returned to the Emiya family’s living room.
After comforting the exhausted Sakura to sleep, Emiya Shirou came to the living room alone.
In front of him lay a bright red shroud, and underneath it lay Archer’s bronze arm.
This is a relic of a heroic spirit that should not exist in this world.
Shirou looked at it, his eyes filled with determination.
He knew that with only his half-baked magic, he couldn’t even protect Sakura, let alone save her.
Even if it is a gift from the devil.
In the picture, he picked up a reinforced knife and cut his left arm without any hesitation.
Blood gushed out instantly.
He actually wanted to cut off his own arm while alive and transplant the holy shroud of the heroic spirit onto his own body.
The light screen gave him a close-up of his face.
Sweat mixed with blood slid down, and his teeth chattered in pain.
His lips had already been bitten to a bloody mess.
But his eyes didn’t waver in the slightest.
There was a flash of light, and the arms connected together.
He fell to the ground, convulsing violently.
On the skin, countless blue magic circuits flickered on and off crazily like red-hot irons.
A line of blood-red warning text slowly appeared above the light curtain.
Shirou Emiya looked at himself in the picture who was using self-harm to gain power, and he felt like he was struck by lightning.
What a crazy and reckless behavior that was.
Forcibly grafting a spiritual limb belonging to a heroic spirit onto the body of an ordinary human.
He couldn’t understand how desperate he was to make such a crazy choice.
Saber roared with boundless rage and sorrow.
For the first time, an expression of near-fear appeared on her usually calm face.
That is not your power; it is the curse of a Heroic Spirit completely different from you.
As a Heroic Spirit, she knew better than anyone what a complete Spirit Core meant.
And Shirou, this foolish boy, actually tried to use his fragile body to carry part of the spirit core of another heroic spirit.
This is no longer stupid.
Toosaka Rin suddenly jumped up from her seat and screamed hysterically.
As a top magician, she understood better than anyone what this action meant.
If it were to be connected to a living, fragile human being, his body would instantly collapse in on itself.
When Sakura saw her senior making such a crazy and tragic sacrifice for her, her heart almost broke.
When she heard the inhuman screams of pain from her predecessor, she could no longer control herself.
Her heart, which had already been infused with a ray of light, was at this moment completely submerged by the deeper and heavier darkness called sin.
She stretched out her hand, wanting to touch the figure struggling in pain on the ground on the screen, tears rolling down her face like pearls from a broken string.
Not for someone like me.
Stop hurting yourself.
If it weren’t for this filthy and ominous existence like me, the senior wouldn’t have to endure such pain.
Its own functions can no longer meet the needs of the mission, so it chooses to discard useless parts and replace them with external weapons with stronger performance.
Although the cost is his own lifespan and the stability of his existence, this cost-benefit analysis is completely valid in order to achieve the short-term top priority goal of saving Sakura Matou.
Irisviel could no longer bear it, and she screamed with tears in her eyes.
Illya looked at Shirou Emiya who was screaming in pain on the ground, and all the smiles on her innocent face disappeared.
Instead, there was an extremely complex feeling, a mixture of schadenfreude and a hint of irritation that she herself was not even aware of.
She curled her lips and sneered.
She attacked the boy with the most vicious words.
But for some reason, she didn’t feel any joy of revenge at all.
Instead, it felt like something was blocking my way and I felt extremely uncomfortable.
Hero King Gilgamesh laughed a laugh filled with contempt and mockery.
Shirou Emiya, an ugly, stitched-together freak like you isn’t even worthy of my second glance. You’re the lowest of bastards.
Chapter 23: I gave up the world to save you! The greatest betrayal in history! (Old version)
The light curtain switched again.
Shirou Emiya stood alone in the snow, his left arm tightly wrapped in a bright red holy cloth.
In the darkness, a figure that made everyone breathless slowly walked out.
It was a girl wearing a dark Gothic metal skirt armor.
Her skin was pale and bloodless, and her dazzling golden hair had turned a dull gray.
And those eyes that should have been green had now turned into golden eyes that were as violent and destructive as lava.
In her hand, she held a pitch-black holy sword that was completely contaminated by black magic.
Swallowed by shadows, tainted by all the evils of this world.
The once noble and glorious King of Knights has now become a cold-blooded tyrant who only knows how to execute orders to kill.
Shirou Emiya looked at the figure in front of him who was both the most familiar and the most unfamiliar to him, and uttered the name with difficulty.
The girl held up the dark holy sword with an expressionless face.
She pronounced his death sentence in a cold, emotionless tone.
The battle broke out.
Emiya Shirou untied the holy cloth from his left arm.
He roared, releasing Archer’s forbidden power.
He projected the pair of black and white husband and wife swords, and fought fiercely with the dark knight king who wielded the black holy sword.
Every collision stirred up a magical gale, blowing up snow all over the sky.
SaberAlter possesses nearly infinite magical power from the Holy Grail, and each of her swords can split mountains and seas.
And every time Emiya Shirou projected his energy and swung his sword, he was madly burning up his remaining life.
His body was collapsing and his mind was blurring.
But he still gritted his teeth and refused to back down.
Because he knew that this was his atonement.
It was also his farewell to his naive ideals.
Finally, SaberAlter raised the holy sword high.
Black magic gathered like a storm.
The all-destructive black light cannon bombarded the exhausted Emiya Shirou.
At the same time, Shirou injected all of his soul, which was about to burn out, into Archer’s arm.
Seven petals of light suddenly unfolded in front of him, transforming into the ultimate shield.
But to no avail.
The black light cannon easily tore the first, second, and third petals into pieces.
Just as the destructive light was about to engulf him, Emiya Shirou used up his last bit of strength and stabbed out another projected Noble Phantasm.
A gorgeous dagger filled with divine aura fiercely stabbed at the King of Knights whom he once admired and respected so much.
Chain Reaction: The Heaviest Sin, the Saddest Glory
Ah…ah…ah.
Shirou Emiya looked at the figure in the picture who ended the life of his first companion with his own hands, his knees weakened and he fell to the ground.
He could make no sound and shed no tears.
He just stared blankly, his heart as if being crushed into pieces by an invisible hand.
That’s Saber.
It was the noble Knight King who had made a pact with him under the moonlight.
He is a reliable teacher who strictly instructs him in swordsmanship in the dojo.
He is the most important partner who fights alongside him and lives under the same roof.
Did I kill her?
This realization was like the most vicious curse, branding an indelible mark of sin deep in his soul.
The consciousness that was born to protect Sakura, at this moment, showed its bloody and hideous price for the first time.
Saber stood there quietly.
She looked at the other self in the picture, who was lying in the snow and slowly disappearing. There was no anger or fear on her face.
There is only a bottomless sorrow that seems to span the ages.
Yeah.
She closed her eyes gently.
Is this the final end for me, devoured by the curse of the Holy Grail?
She didn’t hate Shirou.
She could even understand the meaning of that final stab.
That is not killing, but liberation.
It was the Master’s final act of mercy, freeing her from the humiliating fate of a tyrant, tainted by the black mud.
Well done, Shirou.
You have once again fulfilled the contract between us.
You are a better king than I.
She covered her mouth to prevent herself from crying out loud.
But the tears still rolled down uncontrollably from between the fingers.
She wasn’t grieving over Saber’s death.
As a magician, she was already accustomed to the Servants’ exits.
She just felt sorry for the clumsy boy who had completely cut off his own ideals with his own hands.
You idiot.
She whispered with a choked sob.
How much are you carrying in this battle?
Sakura looked at the dark Knight King lying in the snow.
She could hardly breathe as she watched the senior who had cornered himself in order to kill her.
The little happiness she felt from being protected was completely crushed at this moment by the greater guilt of being the culprit.
It’s my fault again.
It was me who polluted Saber.
It was me who forced the senior to kill his most important companion with his own hands.
It was me who turned that gentle and kind senior who couldn’t bear to hurt even stray cats into a murderer whose hands were stained with the blood of his companions.
She clutched her chest in pain, feeling like she could hardly breathe.
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the snowy field stained red with blood and fell into a long silence.
There was no expression on his face.
But his left hand, which was not holding the gun, was trembling slightly.
The noble Knight King whom he had once used without hesitation for victory, even forcing him with Command Seals.
It turned out to be such a tragic way to leave.
And it was her own son who ended her life.
What an ironic cycle of fate this is.
He made the right choice.
After a long time, he spoke coldly in an extremely dry tone, as if trying to convince himself.
In order to achieve the ultimate goal, clear all obstacles on the way, even if that obstacle is your former companion.
This is the most efficient approach.
Shut up, Kiritsugu.
Irisviel, tears streaming down her face, interrupted him with an unprecedented coldness.
Don’t you understand yet?
That’s not efficiency.
That was the price a young man paid with his own soul for the sins he committed.
Illya looked at the slowly disappearing black Saber, and all expression disappeared from her face.
Ten years ago, it was this woman who betrayed Einzbern along with Kiritsugu.
She should have been gloating about it.
But for some reason, she couldn’t laugh at all when she saw the red-haired boy kneeling in pain in the snow.
Her heart seemed to be frozen by the flying snow, cold and hard.
Hahahahahaha, beautiful, really beautiful.
In stark contrast to everyone else’s heaviness, King of Heroes Gilgamesh laughed heartily, a laugh that came from the bottom of his heart.
This is tragedy, this is the essence of the story.
He stood up with his glass in hand, his face full of the enthusiastic smile of someone who appreciates a masterpiece of art.
The hero killed his own legend with his own hands.
The boy buried his ideals with his own hands.
How sweet and fragrant is this dark glory woven from betrayal and killing.
He looked at the tiny figure struggling in the snow as if he was looking at the most shining protagonist in the center of the stage.
Come on, Emiya Shirou.
Let me see how interestingly you, a stray dog, can struggle after you have killed your own ideals.
True End
[Scene Change: Before the Holy Grail, the Last Guardian]After a life-and-death battle on the snowy plains, Shirou Emiya, dragging his already battered and broken body, finally arrived at the large underground cavern of Ryudo Temple.
The culprit of everything is right there.
The huge black sun, composed of all the evil in this world, was pulsating wildly at the top of the cave, devouring everything around it.
And Sakura Matou was like a sacrifice, bound in the center of the black mud.
There was only one thing Emiya Shirou had to do.
Completely free Sakura from the curse of the Holy Grail that had plagued her for eleven years.
The final battle broke out.
He faced the supervisor of this Holy Grail War, Kotomine Kirei, who was also pursuing the Holy Grail and the essence of evil pleasure.
Two equally empty and broken men engaged in the most primitive and brutal hand-to-hand combat in the center of a world that was about to be destroyed.
There was no magic, no Noble Phantasm, only a clash of fists and will.
In the end, Emiya Shirou won this tragic victory without any glory at the cost of near death.
He finally came to Sakura.
He burned up what little was left of him.
Release all the knowledge and power that is as vast as smoke in Archer’s arms.
He projected the legendary Shield of Aias, which could withstand all attacks, and created a last chance for himself to breathe.
He projected the cause-and-effect-reversing magic spear, GaeBolg, which would surely pierce the enemy’s heart, clearing the final obstacle.
Finally, finally.
He poured his entire soul into it.
He projected the forbidden treasure from the treacherous witch Medea, which was not meant for him to possess.
A twisted dagger with a strange shape, shining with golden light.
RuleBreaker!
Give Sakura back to me!
He let out the last roar of his life.
He thrust the conceptual Noble Phantasm, which was powerful enough to sever all contracts in the world and sever all cause and effect, fiercely into the chest of the girl he most wanted to protect.
A burst of light.
The contract between Sakura and the curse of the Holy Grail that had plagued her for eleven years was completely severed.
The girl was freed from the endless erosion of black mud.
However, Emiya Shirou also stopped there.
His body could no longer maintain its human form and was about to be completely devoured by the endless, rampaging swords within him.
At this moment, a person no one expected appeared.
Illyasviel von Einzbern.
She was wearing the pure white celestial garment that she would only wear when performing the duties of the Lesser Holy Grail.
At the cost of her own dwindling life, she closed the door to hell that was about to devour the entire world.
And it activated the incomplete but true third method: soul materialization.
She forcibly separated Emiya Shirou’s soul, which was about to dissipate along with his body, from the torrent of time and preserved it.
Because I am the older sister.
It’s only natural to protect my brother.
Before she lost consciousness, the girl showed an extremely happy and satisfied smile.
【Epilogue: A long wait, a reunion in spring】
The picture began to jump rapidly, just like the passing time.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter, one year, two years.
Toosaka Rin and Matou Sakura reconciled.
Two girls who had both lost the most important things in their lives supported each other.
They traveled to every corner of the world, carrying the small container of Shirou’s soul that Illya had exchanged her life for.
They searched for the blank doll body that could perfectly hold his soul.
Finally, on a spring day when cherry blossoms were in full bloom, in the Emiya family courtyard that everyone was familiar with, the familiar red-haired figure slowly opened his eyes again.
He may no longer be fully human.
But he came back.
Sakura, wearing a pink kimono, smiled and shed tears as she threw herself into the warm arms of the man she had been waiting for for countless days and nights.
Welcome back, senior.
Rin Toosaka stood in the corridor not far away, watching this scene, a relieved and gentle smile appeared on her face, as if all the burdens had been lifted off her shoulders.
Under the cherry tree in the courtyard, Saber’s phantom seemed to appear there, showing her former Master the most sincere smile of blessing.
[End of Review: Emiya Shirou (Knight of Matou Sakura)]His crime is betrayal.
His actions are for love.
He abandoned his grand ideal of saving everyone.
In the end, he saved his own little world.
In this final, incredibly warm scene of dancing cherry blossoms, the light curtain slowly dimmed and eventually returned to complete darkness.
The light curtain returned to complete darkness.
The warm courtyard with dancing cherry blossoms, along with the figure of the red-haired boy who finally found happiness, disappeared.
It was as if the little miracle that had finally been achieved after overcoming countless sorrows and pains was just an illusory spring dream.
but.
The shock that is enough to shake the soul, the enlightenment that is enough to subvert ideals, and the warmth that is enough to melt ice and snow are like an indelible mark, deeply engraved in the hearts of every audience.
The world fell into an unprecedented long silence.
In this dead silence, something is quietly changing.
Chapter 24 A miracle has happened! “Because, I am your sister.” He may no longer be human, but he is back! (Old version)
In a dark, damp underground insect room filled with a foul smell.
The purple-haired girl who had been curled up in the darkest corner slowly raised her head.
Her face was already completely soaked with tears.
But in those amethyst-like eyes that had always been filled with emptiness, numbness and despair, a faint but extremely bright ray of hope ignited for the first time.
She looked at the dark curtain of light, as if she could still see the figure who betrayed the whole world to protect her.
I can still seem to feel the warm embrace that held me tightly in the rainy night.
She saw a future where she, too, could be saved.
I saw a future where I would no longer be seen as a dirty and ominous being.
I see a happy future where I can say welcome back to my favorite person in the spring when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom.
To her, this was a dream more unreal than any magic trick and more distant than any miracle.
But now, this dream told her in the most real and cruel way that it was possible.
Sakura slowly stretched out the white hand engraved with the Command Seal and gently touched the cold and empty light curtain.
It’s as if I want to touch the happiness that exists in another world.
She murmured silently in a voice that was almost like a prayer.
I’m sorry too.
Thank you for letting me see the light.
I’m sorry that you have paid so much for this light.
In the basement workshop, Toosaka Rin sat quietly on the somewhat cold wooden chair.
She didn’t cry, nor did she scream like before.
She just covered her face gently with her hands, not wanting anyone to see her eyes that were already red from crying.
After a long time, she slowly put down her hand and walked to the laboratory table filled with gems.
All the confusion and hesitation in her beautiful sapphire eyes had faded away.
In its place was an unprecedented cold and firm awareness.
I understood what I should do as a sister.
I realized who I should hate as Tōsaka.
I now understand where I, as a magus, should use this power.
The Holy Grail, the roots, the glory of the family.
Those things became pale and ridiculous in front of the figure of that idiot who burned himself to death to protect his sister.
Matou Zōkō.
She squeezed out the name word by word from between her teeth.
Every syllable carries a chilling chill that is enough to freeze the soul.
I will definitely personally eliminate you, this old bug, from this world completely.
This is a new oath she made for herself as Tōsaka Rin.
In the luxurious room, Illya also stopped crying.
She sat quietly on the sofa, burying her face in the soft velvet pillow.
After a long time, she slowly raised her head.
Her ruby-like eyes looked at the dark light curtain with an extremely complicated expression.
She saw herself in another world, making the ultimate sacrifice for the son of Kiritsugu, the person she should have hated the most.
She saw that in the end, she showed such a happy and satisfied smile.
She saw that she had fulfilled her mission as a sister.
The ten-year-long hatred in her heart caused by being abandoned seemed to be completely melted away at this moment by the other self who finally called out “brother”.
She still hated Kiritsugu.
But as for the young man named Emiya Shirou, she could no longer treat him as a mere tool for revenge.
Berserker.
She gently tugged at the hem of the mountain-like giant’s clothes behind her.
I seem to understand a little bit what my sister means.
So yeah.
She raised her head, and her innocent and lovely face showed an extremely serious expression that was completely different from her previous cruelty.
Let’s change the way we play the Holy Grail War this time.
Emiya Kiritsugu slowly walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window.
He looked out the window at the silent forest covered with ice and snow, which was very similar to the one in the light curtain.
He saw all his endings.
He saw himself in a parallel world that practiced utilitarianism, and ultimately only passed on a cold and cursed ideal.
He saw the future Shirou, who inherited innocent dreams, eventually become a sad puppet who couldn’t even retain his own self.
In the end, he saw that Shirou, who had completely betrayed his ideals and chosen an affair, received a redemption that was incomplete but true after paying a terrible price.
The heavy shackles that had tormented him all his life due to the word justice seemed to be completely shattered at this moment by his clumsy son who had implemented love with his life.
He lost, and lost with conviction.
After a long time, he slowly turned around and looked at the only light that had been silently accompanying him.
For the first time, his face, frozen like a dead man, showed a hint of incomparable relief, a gentle smile as if he had unburdened himself.
Ellie.
Well, I’m here, Kiritsugu.
I gave up the Holy Grail.
He said.
The kind of bullshit miracle that requires sacrificing one’s daughter and distorting one’s son’s life.
I don’t want it anymore.
Irisviel looked at her husband’s face, which seemed to have instantly become ten years younger and full of human energy, a face she had not seen for a long time.
Um.
After the light curtain completely went dark, Hero King Gilgamesh fell into a long and rare silence.
The entire luxurious suite on the top floor was so quiet that the only sound was the never-ending howling of the wind outside the window.
After a long time, he slowly raised the glass of top-quality red wine that had already gone cold.
He saluted from afar at the pitch-black void of light, as if nothing had happened.
He didn’t let out his signature laugh of arrogance and delight.
He no longer called the boy a bastard or a fake.
He just quietly savored the ultimate sweetness brought to him by the three completely different stories.
A boring piece of scrap metal worn out by ideals.
A magnificent masterpiece that burned out because of its protection.
A twisted hero betrayed by love.
Emiya Shirou.
He uttered the name slowly.
For the first time, a trace of true and pure respect flashed in those scarlet snake eyes that were always filled with tyranny and arrogance.
It’s like admiring a unique and rare treasure.
Your story is a tragicomedy of the highest order, worthy of being remembered by this king.
So.
He stood up from the throne, walked to the French window, and looked down at the tiny city that was about to be engulfed in flames of war.
Let me witness it with my own eyes.
After seeing all this, which path will you choose in this world?
The last of all.
In the Emiya family’s warehouse.
The red-haired boy kneeling on the ground slowly wiped the tears from his face.
He also saw three completely different futures for himself.
He saw the sad guardian who lost himself in his attempt to be everyone’s hero.
He saw the magnificent sacrifice who ultimately burned himself out in order to become a hero to others.
He saw the winner who ultimately survived by bearing everything in order to become a hero.
He stood up slowly.
All the confusion, weakness and self-doubt in his eyes have faded away.
He still longed for the distant figure of his partner named justice.
But he no longer regarded it as the only, absolute correct one.
He looked at the beautiful knight king who was wearing a blue knight’s skirt and armor and had been silently guarding him.
He showed a smile that was completely different from the innocent one before, and it was extremely firm and reliable.
I’m really sorry for letting you see so many embarrassing things.
Saber looked at the young man before her, seeing his mature gaze that seemed to have transformed in an instant.
She also revealed a smile that came from the heart, full of relief, and as gentle as a spring breeze.
She solemnly performed the highest chivalric salute belonging to the ancient British royal family to her young Master.
No, Master.
She said.
I am proud of you.
The boy nodded heavily.
He stretched out his hand and looked at the three bright red Command Seals on his palm that looked like crosses.
It was as if he was making a new oath that belonged only to him, to that unknown existence behind the scenes, and also as if he was making a new oath to his own future full of infinite possibilities.
No matter which way.
This time, I will never lose again.
Chapter 25: The Strongest Public Execution in History! Gilgamesh is so angry that he smashes his wine glass on the spot! The Holy Grail War has arrived in Eagle Country (Old Version)
In this silence that was enough to change everyone’s fate, the dark curtain of light, as if never giving anyone a chance to breathe, lit up again without any warning!
This time, the background color of the light curtain was no longer the sacred gold, nor the cold pure white, nor the warm cherry color.
It was a dark purple that was ominous and heart-pounding.
Fourth Place: Hero King Gilgamesh (Young Tyrant Ver.)
boom—-!!!
The moment this line of words appeared, it was like an invisible thunder, exploding in everyone’s mind!
“–What?!”
Gilgamesh, the heroic king who had always been looking down on all the farces as a condescending “viewer”, revealed a genuine and pure “surprise” for the first time on his handsome face that could be described as divinely created the moment he saw these words!
The wine glass in his hand, which was made of pure gold and filled with top-quality wine, was crushed to pieces by him unconsciously with a “snap” sound!
The golden wine mixed with golden crumbs slowly dripped through his fingers, but he was completely unaware.
His scarlet snake eyes, which were always filled with tyranny and arrogance, were now staring intently at the words on the screen, and his pupils shrank to a dangerous extreme!
“…Inventory, my king?”
His voice was so low that it seemed to come from the abyss of hell, and every syllable was filled with a terrifying anger that was enough to freeze the very space.
He is the most ancient king who reigns supreme in heaven and on earth!
He is the absolute arbiter who has witnessed human history and determined the value of all things!
He can be a spectator, a judge, or even a chess player who plays with everything when he feels like it!
But how could he, how could he, like those lowly bastards before him, be treated as an object of “inventory” by this damned light curtain of unknown origin?!
This is blasphemy!
This is the most fundamental, unforgivable, and ultimate blasphemy against his status as a “king”!
“And… ‘Young Tyrant ver.’?”
He chewed on this provocative suffix, and in his scarlet snake eyes, the pure astonishment had begun to be replaced by an even more terrifying rage that was brewing like a storm!
“ver.?”
“Version?”
“How dare a mere unknown bastard use such despicable words to describe this king, defining him as a ‘commodity’?!”
“You, do you want to die?!”
With him as the center, countless golden ripples spread wildly in the air like a virus!
From it, tens of thousands of knives, spears, swords, and halberds emerged! Each one was an original Noble Phantasm that would drive countless magi crazy!
Gate of Babylon, unreserved and in full force!
It was as if he wanted to blast this damn light curtain that dared to list him as an “inventory target” and this world that made him unhappy into dust in the universe!
Inside the warehouse, the moment Emiya Shirou felt the terrifying pressure that seemed to crush his soul, his face turned as pale as paper!
He remembered!
He will never forget it!
It’s this aura! It’s this man!
It was he who, ten years ago, at the center of that fire, used his ruthless golden treasure to create the hell that swallowed up everything he had!
“…Gilgamesh!”
He squeezed out the name from between his teeth, his amber eyes filled with deep fear and uncontrollable anger!
But when he saw the contents on the screen clearly, his anger was instantly replaced by greater confusion.
“Take stock of… that golden sparkle?”
Wasn’t the light curtain supposed to be taking stock of “Emiya Shirou”? Why did it suddenly jump to this inexplicable culprit who caused the hell ten years ago?
“And… ‘Young Tyrant ver.’? What does that mean? Is there… another version of him?”
This thought made him shudder.
One Gilgamesh is already an unbeatable disaster.
If there was another…
He didn’t dare think about it anymore.
The moment that divine power erupted, Saber had already protected Shirou behind her, and the invisible sword in her hand emitted a vigilant hum!
“This pressure… there’s no doubt about it, it’s Archer!” Her face was filled with an unprecedented solemnity. “He’s serious!”
She knew better than anyone how terrifying that man was once he became truly angry.
However, when she saw the words on the screen, a trace of confusion, the same as Shirou’s, flashed across her green eyes.
“Take inventory of Archer? Why?”
“‘Young Tyrant’…huh?” She muttered the suffix softly, her brows furrowed.
“That title… does fit the impression he gives. But, ‘young man’? Could it be that what we know is not his strongest form?”
As the King of Knights, she instantly sensed a more dangerous and disturbing possibility in this word.
In the underground workshop, Toosaka Rin was so shocked by the sudden terrifying pressure that she fell back into her chair!
The defensive barriers she had set up around the workshop, which were strong enough to withstand the full-strength attack of a first-rate magician, were like fragile glass in the face of that divine power, and they emitted a mournful “cracking” sound as they could not bear the weight!
“That bastard Jin Shanshan! What’s wrong with him?!”
While she was frantically reinforcing the barrier, she looked up at the light curtain, and then she saw the line of text that made her brain crash instantly.
“Huh?! Taking inventory of that Archer?!”
Lin’s mouth opened into an “O” shape and couldn’t close for a long time.
“Are you kidding me?! Why is it his turn?! No, no, no, the point is, what’s the point in taking stock of him? Isn’t that guy’s ‘vest’ just ‘Hero King Gilgamesh’? Is this some kind of secret?!”
She completely couldn’t understand the logic of the light curtain.
However, when her eyes fell on the suffix “Young Tyrant ver.”, her keen intuition as a magician allowed her to instantly detect something amiss.
“……etc.”
“‘ver.’?”
“Could it be that… the person the light curtain wants to inventory isn’t the Gilgamesh we know?”
“But… the one from another parallel world, who is younger and more… brutal?!”
This inference caused a layer of cold sweat to instantly seep out of Lin’s back.
She thought back to her previous inventory.
Whether it’s the Heroic Spirit Emiya, Miyu’s brother, or the Sakura Knight.
Each one of them is Shirou Emiya, but they are not the same Shirou Emiya.
If this logic also applies to Gilgamesh…
Doesn’t that mean that in this Holy Grail War, besides the Gilgamesh she knew, there is also…
The second one?!
“…Please spare me.”
Lin covered his temple, which was beginning to ache, and let out a desperate cry.
“Oh? Is it finally his turn?”
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the line of purple text, and for the first time, a trace of true, cold murderous intent flashed in his eyes that were as sharp as an eagle.
This was the “natural disaster” that dealt him the heaviest blow ten years ago and was the only one he was completely unable to deal with using the “Magician Killer” method. It was beyond his standard.
He wanted to know more than anyone else where that man’s “weakness” lay.
“‘Young Tyrant’…huh?”
He analyzed the word calmly.
“So, there exists a version of him who is neither a ‘young man’ nor a ‘tyrant’? For example… a ‘wise old king’?”
In just a moment, he deduced from this simple suffix a piece of information that was enough to overturn everyone’s understanding of the King of Heroes.
“Ellie,” he turned to look at his wife, a barely perceptible solemnity in his voice, “it seems that this most ancient king is not a monolithic being either.”
“But, Kiritsugu…” Irisviel looked at the golden figure who had unfolded the “King’s Treasure” out of anger, her face filled with worry. “Is it really okay to take inventory of him? He looks like… he’s about to destroy the entire city.”
She could feel that the man’s anger was pure, undisguised, and enough to burn everything.
“Wow! It’s Gilgamesh!”
When Illya saw the new title on the screen, an excited expression appeared on her face, as if she had discovered a new toy.
“Great! I’ve been wanting to see this guy get humiliated for a long time!”
She clapped her hands, her red eyes flashing with gloating.
“‘Young Tyrant’? Haha, that name suits him so well! Young and annoying!”
She had no idea what a terrifying risk it would be to take stock of this “out-of-specification” man.
To her, it was just another interesting drama played out on the screen.
“Berserker!” She turned around and excitedly gave orders to the mountain-like giant behind her. “Wait a minute, if that golden weakness appears in the light screen, you must be the first to rush over and tear it into pieces!”
In the dark insect room, the moment Sakura felt the terrifying pressure, her body shrank suddenly, as if she was back to the helpless despair when she was being bitten by the engraving insects.
She was afraid of that man.
Deep down, she was afraid of the golden king who indirectly caused that hell ten years ago.
When she saw the light screen was about to take stock of him, she didn’t feel any joy that “the enemy’s intelligence was about to be exposed”, but was instead gripped by greater fear.
I’m afraid that this capricious tyrant will, when angered, do something even more horrific than all the tragedies in the previous three lists combined.
She unconsciously called out in her heart the only warm name that could bring her a sense of security.
Just when the whole world was immersed in its own thoughts and shock because of this sudden new inventory.
The light curtain completely ignored the Hero King’s raging rage that was enough to destroy everything.
It just slowly unfolds a new picture on its own.
The scene is no longer Fuyuki City, nor is it a place familiar to any viewer.
Instead, it is a vast desert scene of the western United States, full of modernity and desolation.
[Screen opens: A false Holy Grail War begins on the other side of the world]The camera quickly pulls down from a high altitude!
Finally, it froze on a huge map of the North American continent.
On the map, a bright red mark like a bull’s eye appeared in the United States state of Nevada.
Next to it, a line of clear, purple text appeared.
This review takes place in Snowfield, Nevada, United States.
“The…United States?!”
Toosaka Rin looked at the extremely clear map coordinates, her eyes almost popping out of her sockets!
“Are you kidding me?! The Holy Grail War has moved to the United States?!”
As the legitimate manager of the spiritual veins of Fuyuki City and the current head of the Tosaka family, one of the three main families in Fuyuki City, when she saw this scene, she felt that her worldview was once again pressed to the ground by the light curtain and rubbed repeatedly in a hundred different ways!
“No… No! This doesn’t make sense!”
She jumped up from her seat like a cat whose tail was stepped on, and retorted incoherently.
“The Holy Grail War is a ritual rooted in the spiritual veins of Fuyuki City! It’s a unique, great magecraft that can only be performed on this land! How could it be opened to the other side of the world like a chain convenience store?!”
This is no longer a question of “magic theory” being overturned!
All her pride and the foundation of her existence as “Tōsaka”, “Manager”, and “One of the Three Great Families” were ruthlessly and completely denied by this damn light curtain!
Emiya Kiritsugu looked at the coordinates, his eyes instantly becoming extremely deep.
He didn’t lose his composure like Lin, but his heart was also in turmoil.
“The intelligence was wrong…or rather, we were deceived by ‘common sense’ from the very beginning.”
He analyzed calmly.
“We have always believed that the Holy Grail War was a unique ritual performed by the Einzbern, Tōsaka, and Makiri (Matou) families in the ‘singularity’ of Fuyuki City.”
“But now it seems… this ‘system’ seems to have a certain ‘replicability’.”
“Or perhaps…”
A cold, chilling light flashed in his eyes.
“…Fuyuki City’s Holy Grail was never the ‘only’ one from the beginning.”
This inference is ten thousand times more terrifying than the “Holy Grail War being replicated”.
“How could this be… How could this be possible…” Irisviel covered her mouth, a look of disbelief on her face. “Isn’t the Holy Grail the one and only miracle that we, the Einzbern, have been pursuing for thousands of years?”
She could feel that the meaning of her existence as the “Vessor of the Holy Grail” was beginning to shake from the foundation.
Chapter 26: Intelligence Thieves! These Eagle Country Guys Stole the Core Technology of Our Three Imperial Families! (Old Version)
“The United States…?”
Shirou Emiya looked at the unfamiliar place name, confusion written all over his face.
He was not like Rin or Kiritsugu, who could analyze any deeper magical meaning from this place name.
He simply felt confused and uneasy from the perspective of an ordinary person.
“…Why is it so far away?”
“Did that Jin Shanshan go there too?”
“Will the Holy Grail War there also cause fires like the one in Fuyuki City ten years ago? Will innocent people be dragged into it as well?”
Countless questions filled with worry suddenly emerged in his mind.
Saber’s expression was much more solemn than his.
“…blasphemy.”
She uttered these two words in a cold voice.
“To so easily replicate the battlefield where heroic souls risked their glory and dignity on another side of the world… This is the most fundamental and ruthless blasphemy against all the heroes who participated in this ceremony!”
As a Heroic Spirit, she could understand better than anyone the immense humiliation that came when that “uniqueness” was broken, as if her own existence had been devalued.
“Oh? Ran to the United States? You really know how to have fun.”
Illya didn’t react much to this.
In her opinion, both Fuyuki City and Snowfield City were merely stages for the drama of the “Holy Grail War”.
“But how did they do it? Einzbern’s technology can’t be copied so easily.”
She tilted her head, and in her red eyes, there was a glint of curiosity that belonged to a “technician”.
“Humph, they must have used some shoddy methods. A bunch of guys who can’t even figure out how to make a genuine product, yet they’re still dreaming of making a copy. How ridiculous.”
She was full of disdain for this.
The Hero King Gilgamesh looked at the coordinates of the “Barbarian Land” and the anger on his face subsided a little.
What replaced it was a deeper, colder contempt.
“So that’s what it is. It’s a low-brow farce being staged in a desert where there’s not even a blade of grass.”
He understood instantly.
“I suppose a bunch of ignorant bastards stole the ‘script’ that should have belonged to Fuyuki City, hoping to recreate the glory of my king in that desolate land.”
“It’s really…how ugly, a simple imitation of someone else.”
His expectations for this “inventory” have dropped to freezing point.
In his opinion, this was nothing more than a ridiculous, ugly, and…
Not worth mentioning, just a parody show.
As if to confirm his guess.
Above the light curtain, purple text appeared again, giving a more detailed and more…shocking explanation.
The Nature of War: An Incomplete “Fake” Born of Human Arrogance
[Commentary: The Holy Grail War in Snowfield City is not a normal ritual led by the “Root”.][Instead, it was forcibly copied by the mage organization “Snowfield” in the western United States, in conjunction with the United States government, using information and debris stolen from the Fourth and Fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail Wars.]【——Counterfeit product.】
“——Mountain!!! Village!!! Product!!!!”
When the three words “counterfeit” were branded on Toosaka Rin’s retina like a red-hot iron, her string of “rationality” finally broke with a “snap”!
“Thieves! A bunch of shameless thieves!”
She let out a hysterical, shrew-like scream that was totally inconsistent with her image of an “elegant top student”!
She grabbed a priceless magic gem on the experimental table beside her, and without thinking, smashed it hard at the empty light curtain!
Of course, it’s useless.
The gem passed through the light curtain and hit the cold wall, shattering into pieces.
“Stealing! You actually stole something that our three great families have been researching for hundreds of years! You stole the hard work of my father, my grandfather, and generations of our Tohsaka family!!”
“Stealing it would be fine! But they even produced a half-finished product! A knock-off!!”
“You damned American idiots! What else can you do besides plagiarism and copying?! Have you ever respected originality?! Have you ever respected intellectual property rights?!”
She was so angry that she was shaking all over, her speech was incoherent, her chest was heaving violently, and her pretty face, which was always full of confidence and pride, was now flushed red with extreme anger!
At this moment, she threw all the Holy Grail, the root, and the magician’s reserve out of her mind.
She was just a poor original creator whose patented core technology, inherited from her ancestors, was shamelessly plagiarized by a rogue company, which made inferior pirated copies and sold them all over the world.
“…Humph, it’s just as I expected.”
A cold smile that hinted at “As expected” appeared on Emiya Kiritsugu’s face.
“Copying with numerous loopholes will inevitably lead to unpredictable risks.”
He instantly judged that this so-called “fake war” would be a hundred times more chaotic and a thousand times more dangerous than the one in Fuyuki City.
Because an unstable system itself is the biggest source of disaster.
“How could this happen… How dare they…” Irisviel covered her mouth, her eyes filled with shock and pity. “The Holy Grail War is such a dangerous, cruel ritual… How could they replicate ‘death’ and ‘tragedy’ like a commodity?”
She really couldn’t understand what was going on in the minds of those United States magicians.
“Ku …
After a brief moment of surprise, Illya let out a hearty laugh filled with gloating joy!
“I’m telling you! I’m telling you! A bunch of idiots who can’t even copy homework!”
She laughed so hard that tears were almost coming out.
“You actually stole our technology! How dare you! But, you did it so poorly, it’s like ‘I’m useless’ is written all over your face!”
She felt an extreme sense of superiority from the “genuine” over the “pirated” products.
“Berserker! What do you think? Should we also go to the United States and tear down all those damn knockoffs?”
She enthusiastically made a destructive suggestion.
“…a copycat…war?”
Emiya Shirou, once again, fell into a state of downtime.
His brain was completely unable to keep up with the surreal information thrown out by the light curtain.
War, are there any copycats?
Then…is the summoned heroic spirit also a copy?
Then…that Jin Shanshan, is also…?
He felt that his common sense was being crushed into powder bit by bit.
Saber’s face revealed a complex expression, a mixture of anger and… a hint of understanding.
She said in a deep voice.
“An incomplete ritual, an unstable spiritual vein… That’s why a Heroic Spirit like Archer, in an ‘incomplete’ state, is summoned.”
She instantly connected “Fake War” with the suffix “Young Tyrant ver.”
“That’s not blasphemy anymore.”
“This is a complete farce for all the heroes!”
“——Fake!!!!! Product!!!”
The rage of the Hero King Gilgamesh, after quelling for a moment, erupted in an even more terrifying and violent manner!
If the previous “inventory” was a “blasphemy” to his dignity as a “king”.
Then, this “fake war” is the most fundamental and ruthless “insult” to his existence as a “hero”!
“Good…good! Excellent!”
He laughed in anger, his scarlet snake eyes filled with violent and destructive excitement!
“A bunch of ants who can’t even recognize my treasure! A bunch of bugs who can’t even understand my glory!”
“You actually dared to use your dirty, despicable, money-stealing ‘copycat’ methods to recreate the ‘authentic’ from the mythical era?!”
“Unforgivable! This sin is more unforgivable than all the previous ones!”
“The King has made his decision!”
He slowly raised one hand and pointed it at the empty light curtain.
“After this boring inventory is over…”
“—This king will personally visit that filthy land and completely wipe those bastards who dared to create ‘fakes’, along with their ridiculous city, off the map!”
The light curtain seemed to think he was not angry enough.
Once again, a line of commentary was typed, enough to drive the entire world into complete madness. It was the final and most deadly commentary.
[Chain Reaction: The birth of a fake product unexpectedly became the final trigger for the call for the “authentic product.”][Warning: Due to the magical power of the “Fake Holy Grail War”, the earth veins of Xueyuan City have been severely disturbed.][As a chain reaction, the true “Holy Grail” has also descended in that location at the same time.][Current status: True and false overlap, rules collapse.]【——Welcome to the most chaotic and insane Holy Grail War in history.】
At this moment, time seemed to stand still.
The whole world fell into deathly silence.
When this last line, like the cold words of the final judgment, slowly appeared on everyone’s retina.
Time seems to have stood still.
The whole world fell into a dead, suffocating silence.
At this moment, everyone’s brain became completely blank.
“…True, false…overlapping?”
Shirou Emiya looked at the line of words. His brain, which was already on the verge of collapse due to the impact of countless super-common sense information, finally and completely crashed at this moment.
His lips opened and closed unconsciously, but no sound came out.
His pupils lost focus as he couldn’t comprehend the information before him.
What’s the meaning?
What the hell does this mean?!
A war between counterfeits actually led to the emergence of genuine products?!
Two Holy Grail Wars… in the same place… at the same time?!
this……
This is not war anymore!
This is complete and utter hell!
He remembered the fire ten years ago.
The final result of the battle between only seven heroes was that the entire Xindu was completely burned to a white ground, devouring countless innocent lives and swallowing up everything he had.
And now…
The light screen told him that on the other side of the world, a war at least twice as large as this one was about to unfold, and potentially even countless times more tragic due to the “collapse of the rules”…
The ultimate hell drawing!
“I’ll…I’ll die…”
He unconsciously squeezed out these words from his throat, his voice filled with fear that penetrated deep into his bones.
“A lot of people will die… much more than ten years ago…”
An unprecedented cold despair called “powerlessness” was like countless hands reaching out from hell, tightly grasping his heart and making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
He wants to be a partner in justice.
He wants to save everyone.
However, faced with such an extraordinary natural disaster that even Guangmu called “the most chaotic and craziest in history”, what could he do?
He can’t do anything.
He was just an ordinary, half-baked, powerless high school student who couldn’t even protect his own Servant.
Saber, who had always maintained an extremely vigilant posture, revealed a genuine “shock” for the first time on her beautiful face, which was always calm and composed, when she saw the last line of words!
There was no longer any anger or disdain in her emerald eyes.
Instead, there was a kind of cold solemnity that was unique to a “king” and a “military commander” when facing a “war that was bound to fail.”
“…This is not a war.”
Her voice was so low that it seemed as if water could drip out of it.
“This was a pure disaster without any rules, without any glory, without any winners.”
She instantly understood the desperate strategic implications behind the eight words “truth and falsehood overlap, rules collapse.”
Fourteen or more Servants.
Fourteen or more Masters.
They have no faction, no rules, and perhaps even the most basic “Command Spell System” is incomplete.
what does that mean?
This means that there is no so-called “exit”.
There is no such thing as “defeat”.
What they do have is an endless fight to the death, until the entire city, along with the earth veins and all life, is completely devoured, endless killing of each other!
“…We must stop them.”
Her knuckles turned white from the excessive force she exerted on the invisible sword.
“Before they turn that city into a second ‘Fuyuki’… no, before they turn it into a hell ten times worse than Fuyuki, this wrong ritual must be completely eradicated at all costs!”
At this moment, she is no longer a “participant” in the pursuit of the Holy Grail.
Rather, it is the most instinctive and final decision made by the “Heroic Spirit” who protects mankind when facing a huge disaster that is enough to shake the foundation of “human reason”!
Chapter 27: Hell Map! The most chaotic and crazy Holy Grail War in history is about to begin! (Old version)
“……Hahaha……”
Toosaka Rin looked at the line of words. Her face, which had turned red due to extreme anger, suddenly turned completely pale in an instant and became as pale as paper.
She didn’t scream or curse anymore.
She just fell back into the chair helplessly, like a puppet whose strength had been drained away.
His eyes were wide open and his gaze was empty, as if he had seen something, the most absurd, outrageous, and illogical universal truth.
“…The system…crashed…”
“The ‘fake’ subroutine, due to a severe data overflow, reversely eroded the ‘authentic’ parent program… causing both systems to activate simultaneously, and due to the logical conflict, they fell into the most basic, irreparable state of ‘chaos’…”
At this moment, her brain had completely given up thinking from the perspective of a “magician”.
Rather, it’s like a desperate programmer facing two supercomputers that both blue screen and die simultaneously and start spreading viruses to each other.
“How could this happen… How could this be possible…”
“The Holy Grail System, is it actually… such an unstable thing?!”
All her pride and confidence as a member of the Three Great Families, as a manager, and as an elite magician were completely and ruthlessly crushed to pieces at this moment by the words “rules collapsed”.
She had always believed that the Holy Grail War was a cruel, but rigorous “ritual” based on precise rules.
This so-called “ritual” is nothing more than a makeshift team full of bugs that may go completely out of control at any time due to a clumsy “copycat”.
“…What kind of damned time bomb have we, the three great families, been guarding for generations?”
An unprecedented sense of absurdity and fear that penetrated deep into her bones made her whole body cold.
“…The real thing has come out too?”
Illya looked at the line of words, and the gloating smile on her innocent and cute face slowly froze.
Then, that smile began to become incomparable, incomparable…
fanaticism!
“Haha! Haha …
She jumped up from the sofa, opened her arms, and laughed out loud with great joy and excitement like a drama queen about to go on stage!
In her crimson eyes, there flashed a pure, unadulterated desire for “chaos” and “destruction”!
“Fakes and real things are mixed together! All the rules are invalid! Isn’t this the best, freest, grandest ‘game’?!”
She had absolutely no fear of “disaster” at all.
In her opinion, rules exist to be broken.
And this ultimate brawl, without any rules, is the most perfect and final stage prepared for her, the strongest Master, and her strongest Servant – Berserker!
“Berserker!”
She turned around and gave the mountain-like giant behind her an angelic smile full of cruelty and innocence.
“—It’s decided!”
“Once this boring inventory is over, we’ll go to the United States!”
“Go and crush all those toys, whether they are fake or real, one by one!”
All the calmness and analysis on Emiya Kiritsugu’s face, which was like an ice sculpture, completely disappeared at this moment.
Instead, there was a feeling of extreme, bottomless abyss, as if seeing the end of the world coming…
All his previous inferences and warnings seemed so ridiculous and pale in the face of this last line.
He slowly closed his eyes, his voice hoarse, as if two pieces of rusty iron were rubbing against each other.
“it’s all over.”
He knew better than anyone how terrifying a hell a battlefield where “rules collapsed” was.
That means, intelligence, is meaningless.
Tactics, no point.
All of his most proficient “magician killer” methods based on “logic” will be completely ineffective.
What remains is only the purest, most brutal, most unreasonable, and most powerful forces fighting against each other.
It was no longer a “war.”
That is, a force that cannot be controlled by anyone and will devour everything…
Out of control, natural disaster.
“…We must completely ‘disinfect’ the entire Snowfield City from a physical perspective before it completely breaks out.”
He made the coldest and most rational final judgment in a tone without any emotion, as if he was reading a death report.
“Kiritsugu…” Irisviel, with tears in her eyes, hugged her husband tightly from behind, a scarred man who had been tortured by “justice” his entire life.
She knew that her husband’s heart, which had finally felt a little warm because of Shirou’s analysis, was once again completely frozen by the deeper and colder darkness called “despair”.
When Sakura saw the words “rules collapse”, her body suddenly shrank.
For the first time, in her hollow amethyst eyes, there emerged a pure “fear” that was even deeper than when she faced Matou Zouken!
rule……
Collapsed?
This word, like a key, instantly opened the Pandora’s box deep in her heart, the one she was most afraid to touch.
She fears “losing control” more than anyone else.
Every day, she used her fragile will to suppress those ugly, hungry, and wriggling things in her body that “did not follow the rules” and could “get out of control” at any time…
Even the rules of the “world” will collapse.
Even the rules of the “Holy Grail” will get out of control.
That……
What about yourself?
This incomplete, counterfeit vessel of mine, which had long since merged with the fragments of the Holy Grail…
Isn’t it true that one day…
Will it completely “collapse” like that war?
A chill that made her soul tremble spread madly from deep in her spine.
“……Ha ha.”
After dozens of seconds of dead silence.
A meaningless, dry, short laugh emanated from the throat of the Hero King Gilgamesh.
immediately.
“—HA …
An unprecedented, exhilarating, unbridled laughter that seemed to overturn the entire sky erupted from the top of the tall building!
He laughed so hard that he fell back and forth, and tears were about to burst out of his scarlet snake eyes!
“Beautiful! So beautiful!!! So beautiful!!!”
He suddenly stood up from the throne and opened his arms, as if to embrace this upcoming, grandest feast of destruction!
All the anger, contempt, and disdain on his face disappeared at this moment!
Instead, there is a pure, ultimate, supreme joy, as if appreciating the most perfect work of art in the world!
“The fake calls out for the real thing! The rules are completely broken! Hahahahahaha! Is there a more perfect theatrical stage than this?!”
All his previous unhappiness stemmed from the fact that he thought it was a “low-class” farce.
But now, he understood.
This is not a farce!
This is a top-level, mythical, epic, where even the “world” itself has fallen into logical disorder because it cannot bear the glory of the “King”!
It is this world that is using its own “collapse” to offer the highest, yet most humble, tribute to the two “kings” who are about to appear – the real him, and the fake him!
“Good! Good! Good!”
An unprecedented light of excitement burned in his scarlet snake eyes!
“Just let this king see it!”
“On this stage, without any rules, the freest, most chaotic, and craziest!”
“After all, as the ‘genuine’ king, I am superior!”
“That ‘fake’ who dared to use my name can still bring me a little surprise!”
“——This feast, the king, approves!!!”