"Like you’re one to talk, Kiriyū!" Matsuda snapped, the shaved-headed teen covering his crotch reflexively along with every other boy in the classroom sans Shirou "Even we aren’t desperate enough to ask a twig like you out on a date!"
"You say that like I should care." Aika scoffed, though Shirou caught a flash of hurt in her eyes before she covered it up with her usual mocking smirk, the bespectacled girl sidling up to a confused Asia "After all, what need have I for weeds when I’m surrounded by blooming flowers?"
’Definitely like Rin...’ Shirou mused, shaking his head in exasperation as he strode towards his seat, doing his level best to ignore Asia’s flustered squeaks and Issei’s half-hearted attempts to ’protect her purity’ only to blink at the lump of PVC clay waiting on his desk "What’s this?"
"It would appear our instructor wants to put on a show for the visiting parents." Xenovia noted, Shirou’s brow quirking at the forr exorcist, the Faker unable to help admiring how well the Kuoh Girl’s uniform suited her "I believe he said the the was to be ’inspirational’ or sothing to that effect."
’Isn’t this supposed to be English Class?’ Shirou deadpanned, sighing in exasperation as he slipped into his seat, ignoring the cheers from the onlooking parents as they yelled encouragent to their progeny, or in the case of Issei’s completely ignored him in favour of Asia, the Faker glancing down at the lump of clay before him with a bored expression ’Sothing inspirational, huh...’
Now there was a painful subject to tread, and not just because of the mories it called up, but the fact that, as he was now, Shirou doubted his right to even aspire to his once treasured ideals. He had cast away Kiritsugu’s dream of becoming a Hero of Justice, the sa tattered ideal that in countless lifetis had always invariably led to him donning the mantle of a Counter Guardian, a naless, faceless Hound of Alaya, dedicated to dealing out ’Justice’ regardless of how cruelly it tarnished his beliefs.
But despite casting them aside, he’d failed in his selfish desire to protect those important to him. To be a Magus was to walk with Death. Even a third-rate Magus like Shirou had grown up accepting this truth, and yet he simply hadn’t been able to accept it until that night. His ignorance of Sakura’s suffering had led to her being consud by the darkness. His naivete and lack of skill led to Saber being devoured by that self-sa darkness. His inability to wield the full power of the Artificial Phantasm against Saber-Alter had not only cost Rin her life, it also forced him to end Sakura’s with his own two hands.
And above all else, he’d failed to uphold his promise to Illyasviel, the daughter Kiritsugu had lost, the sister he never truly knew, all because of the machinations of bitter old n unable to let go of the past.
If he closed his eyes, he could still rember that night in the park, the night where everything had fallen apart. He’d stumbled out of Kotomine’s Church, unable, no, unwilling, to co to terms with the idea of sacrificing Sakura to save the world, a sacrifice that Rin, her own sister, was willing to accept not out of so overblown sense of duty, but to finally put an end to her younger sister’s decade of suffering.
There had been no chance that Sakura could be saved. From the mont she was entrusted to the Matou, no, from the mont the Einzbern summoned Avenger during the Third War, her fate had been sealed.
He’d sat there, wallowing in his own ineptitude, his mind literally on the verge of snapping, torn between the weight of his borrowed ideals and the harsh reality of his situation, only to be confronted by the deceptively cheerful voice of a snow fairy, one whose deceptively fragile form hid a calculating mind whose self-admitted reason for participating in the war, orders from her family aside, had been to murder Shirou as slowly and painfully as possible in place of the father who abandoned her.
At first, her cavalier dismissal of Saber and Sakura had led the Faker to lash out at her, verbally of course, as even without the threat of Berserker looming in the background, Emiya Shirou wasn’t the kind of scum who would strike a child, but instead of leaving him to wallow in his impotence, Illyasviel had stayed by his side, dismissing his harsh words with a gentle smile.
"I don’t know what happened, but it be too bad for you if I hate you.
So, I’ll be your ally, not matter what you do."
For the second ti in his life, Emiya Shirou found himself saved. Not by words or actions, but by a smile so pure it tugged at his hollow heart and eased all of his woes. It was almost ironic, really, that the child of the man he’d co to idolise would save him from buckling under the weight of her father’s broken ideals, but in that mont, Shirou had vowed to do whatever it took to protect that smile. Even if he was mocked as a fool, he would assu the role Kiritsugu had been forced to abandon, the role he’d been denied by her family’s machinations, and protect his sister from anything that tried to harm her.
Illyasviel had mocked him of course. After all, how could he, who lacked not only Kiritsugu’s skill in Magecraft but his ruthless resolve to cut down anything in his path, save her when she was destined to die in order to bring about the Heaven’s Feel? None of that had mattered to Shirou. He would bear all the scorn, endure all the pain, so long as he could protect the purity of his sister’s smile.
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