It was weeks later when Shirou finally met Sakura.
He had stopped by a park near Homurahara Middle School after the bell rang. Fujimura-sama had nothing for him to work on today, so he planned to continue repairing his estate. He had only started fairly recently, and he didn't have enough money to buy all the materials he needed at once, so it was a slow process, but Shirou had been making progress. It was certainly an annoyance to clear out the various insect colonies that had infested the home for however long, but now that he had finally cleared them out, he was finally able to work on repairing the broken wall and roof.
He had limited experience with drywall, so his technique might end up a little sloppy, but using Structural Grasping on the drywall to see how it was made had helped him out a lot.
Shirou sat down on the bench, setting the spare bento box he had made aside as he took a breather. He absorbed the peacefulness of the wildlife around him, simply listening to the rustling trees and chirping birds. The rest of the world was quiet at that moment.
Fuyuki really is beautiful.
He didn't take the time to appreciate it often enough.
The softly clacking steps of Mary Janes against the concrete alerted Shirou to a new presence entering the park. He glanced over, only mildly curious as to who else decided to come to a park alone, but the distinct purple hair and downcast eyes nearly sent him into shock.
Matou Sakura still wore her sister's ribbon, even here.
He had never put much thought into it back in his world, simply assuming it was an accessory Sakura had been fond of, but upon discovering its true significance from Rin, he threw himself into the creation of the Jeweled Sword. He had to save her, for all of them. Even if it killed him.
And it had.
Her hollow eyes met his, and it was all he could do to smile and not break down into tears. He gestured to her silently, inviting her to sit next to him. She stopped—simply staring at him for a minute—before she made up her mind and walked over to him mechanically. She reminded him of himself, wandering in the flames that birthed him meaninglessly. Just a body without a soul, walking forward because neither of them knew what else to do, only that they did not wish to die just yet. They could only continue on unto death, hoping that someone would save them.
Sakura had been begging for someone to save her all this time.
The realization struck him as hard as Berserker. He felt as if his insides were rearranged incorrectly. She was so much smaller, and just as vulnerable, if not more. He couldn't stand that she had to go through the hell she was still living in.
I want to save her so badly.
"Are you alright?" he asked, even if he already knew the answer. "You look like you're having a pretty rough day."
Sakura looked at him silently before hesitantly nodding, not really answering either question. She turned to stare out at nature with him, not saying a word.
He wanted to say something. Strike up a real conversation with her. Enjoy being around each other, have the real, heartfelt moments that he used to have with his Sakura.
But this isn't my Sakura.
Her eyes never lit up when she saw him. There was no trace of the shy, earnest and determined girl he fell in love with; there existed no comfort or familiarity between them. He was sitting next to a hollow puppet of Zouken. She had no reason for living.
It didn't matter. He still loved her, and he would bring her out of her shell and show her that life was worth living.
He would save her all over again.
"Here," Shirou offered her the spare bento he had made. It was one of his simpler dishes, a sweet pork fried rice with fresh broccoli and sweet potatoes in a tangy, savory glaze. Nonetheless, if the meal made her happy, he would gladly go hungry for a few hours. With any luck, she might even begin to open up to him again.
Baby steps.
She took the food as if it was entirely alien to her, inspecting the box with a hesitant curiosity that was almost catlike. Shirou could easily imagine little purple ears popping out of her head as she investigated the bento. He wanted to open it for her and explain all the ingredients to her, and perhaps even delve into how he had prepared it all, but she still looked fairly uncomfortable with him, as if the slightest forward action would send her skittering away, back to some hiding hole she might have a small bit of comfort within.
He sincerely hoped she had one. Her life was rather short on solace.
Sakura eventually pried open the box, looking over to him once she witnessed its contents, her eyes a bit wider than before. She glanced between him and the bento she was holding, not saying a word, but clearly asking him if the bento was for her.
"Go ahead," he encouraged her gently. "Food should be enjoyed."
A smile quietly stretched across his face as she carefully picked up the chopsticks and clutched a small cluster of the fried rice between them, slowly bringing the food up to her mouth. He watched eagerly as she set it on her tongue and began to chew, savoring the first bite. Sakura blinked, her expression suddenly just a bit more alight than before. The corners of her lips turned upwards, just the faintest amount as she recklessly devoured the food.
That little bit of happiness was everything to him.
"I'm glad you like it," he told her sincerely, smiling. "I hadn't cooked food in a little bit, so I'm a bit out of practice. I'm happy it turned out alright."
She turned and looked at him blankly, glancing back and forth between the half-eaten food and him, before deigning to consume the rest of her meal rather than talk to him. They sat in comfortable silence together, savoring the moment while it lasted. Shirou was enjoying her company just as much as Sakura enjoyed his food.
After she polished off the last of the dish, Sakura hesitated for a second before handing back the box to him, seemingly unsure of…something. Shirou couldn't quite tell.
He took the box gently, not wishing to startle her, and set the chopsticks inside before closing it. Setting it down on his other side, he very nearly missed Sakura's quiet, airy voice.
"Thank you," she murmured, her head still bowed.
"It's no trouble," he answered her happily. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. Maybe I can bring something else for you to try tomorrow if you want."
Sakura froze for a second—likely debating the risks of seeing him again so soon, Shirou assumed—before she nodded slowly in agreement.
"Alright, then it's settled. How about some gyudon? I haven't been able to make that in a while," he mused, scratching his jaw with his index and middle fingers as he looked upwards above the canopy.
He did not see her reaction, admittedly. But if his memory served correct, then she would appreciate it. Sakura was never a very picky eater, and she had always enjoyed trying his new dishes. It was what sparked her interest in cooking western foods. They were new and exciting, completely foreign to her. It was something for Sakura to really explore and branch out into. With that passion for experimentation, she was able to make unique dishes and cuisines from all over Europe, and she had been well on her way to surpassing his own skill in western cuisine.
Shirou stood up and stretched bodily, working the tension out of his back. He had sat around long enough, and while he always enjoyed Sakura's company, he still had a house to repair and magecraft to hone.
"Sorry, I need to get going. I'm working on repairing a house, and I still have a ton of work left," he explained to her apologetically. Sakura looked a bit downcast, but nodded in acceptance, her emotions fading to the hollow shell that she had become under Zouken's ministrations. Shirou turned away, both because he had to leave and because he could hardly stand seeing what the Matou head had turned her into, and waved goodbye as he picked up his empty bento box and began to depart the park.
He blinked. There was something he had forgotten.
Ah, right. I'm not supposed to know her name yet.
"Oh, before I forget, What's your name?" Shirou turned back to her once the realization clicked in his head.
She looked up at him blankly. He could never quite tell what she was thinking when she wore that look. Was it a self-defense mechanism to fool Zouken into thinking she was obedient? Or just the resulting effect of her acceptance of her situation?
Shirou had to suppress a shiver. He sincerely hoped it was the former.
"Matou Sakura," she finally whispered.
"Sakura, hm? I like it," he told her, smiling. "I'm Shirou."
He did not want to mention the name Emiya with Zouken possibly listening in.
Sakura nodded, standing up herself and brushing the dirt off the seat of her skirt. They bowed goodbye to each other, and he wished her a pleasant day before they both set off in separate directions.
He had to force himself from simply taking her hand and never letting go, trying to run away from Zouken's influence with her. He hated that he could do nothing yet—that he wasn't able to safely slaughter the conniving parasite. Shirou continued to push himself forward to his estate, one step at a time, doing his best not to think about what Zouken and Shinji would do to her once she arrived home, and how he could do nothing about it. He had to accept that letting her go back to that hellhole was the best decision for both of them in the long run. Showing his hand too early would make Sakura distrustful, and it would inform Zouken of his intentions. Abandoning her to her suffering was the correct choice, even if it was a horrible thing to do.
Shirou clenched his fist so tight that his nails pierced his palm and drew small crescents of blood.
He hated that he was still so weak.
Replacing the wall's supports had taken some time, but he was able to properly replace them once he had used his magecraft to reverse-engineer the process of constructing the structure. All that was left was to fill in the drywall, and he would be able to work on the roofing and the interior.
He thanked the Root that the plumbing was still in good condition.
Shirou focused on mixing the drywall and applying layered coats over the concrete-reinforced wood while he came up with possible strategies concerning how to hide from Zouken, and eventually get the drop on him. A few possible Noble Phantasms came to mind, and he knew certain holy objects could exorcise the immortal mage, but Zouken's worms would die off, and Kotomine never was able to remove that worm from Sakura's heart. Durandal's miracles might be able to pull it off, but Shirou had no clue if the effects would complete before Zouken killed his host out of spite. He had never used the miracles before, and the sword had no memory of Roland using any of them, so he had no guarantees as to its viability.
Shirou would not risk Sakura's life on guesswork.
He slathered the wall with another layer of the drywall mixture, letting it set as he took a step back. If none of the Noble Phantasms in his soul could guarantee his success, then he needed more time and more information. Durandal was still his best bet for now, given his resources, unless he could use Illya to create a temporary bastardized Holy Grail system to resummon Saber. Given time, it could be possible, and then he could just implant Avalon within Sakura, use Gae Bolg on Zouken and fish out the worm from her heart before Avalon knit her heart back together. After that, he just needed to have Kotomine perform surgery on her to get the rest of the worms out.
Shirou grimaced. That plan was incredibly discomforting. The amount of pain and distress it could place on Illya already made it mostly unviable. His next best bet would be to test out Durandal's miracles, but there was no way he could reliably test its power, and he refused to gamble with Sakura's life. Beyond that, his only possible plan was some kind of bounded field to put Zouken and Sakura in stasis, but he had no clue how to even begin making a bounded field that complex. Shirou needed time, information, power and opportunity, and he was short on all of them.
I guess I have to make my own opportunity.
He sighed, packing up the drywall mixture and setting it back in the shed before walking out of the estate, towards New Fuyuki.
He had a priest to talk to.
The Fuyuki church felt even more unfamiliar than his family's home. Gone was the sinister air that pervaded it, replaced instead by the stifling stench of helplessness. The buildings themselves were superficially identical, with their bright white walls, high, arching windows and overall gothic inspiration, but the church Shirou stood in felt like a completely different place than the church he remembered.
He knew why as soon as the priest turned around.
Kotomine Kirei was not smiling. His air of smugness was gone, replaced by the empty, robotic expression of a man who did not know what he truly wanted in life. This was not the man who enjoyed leading people on with mysteries and little hints, giving them just enough information to keep moving forward, only to then cut them down with horrible truths.
This was not a man who simply enjoyed suffering. This was a man who did not know what to do with himself.
Shirou could relate.
"Did you need something, child? I'm afraid I don't recognize you," Kirei asked him cautiously. "Are you a member of the church?"
Shirou had to speak carefully. Even if this Kotomine seemed more indecisive, he was still an incredibly dangerous man. Saying the wrong thing could have serious consequences. Lying might mean death.
Honesty might be the best policy here. If I can convince him I'm telling the truth, then he might be willing to help me.
And if he feels how I think he feels, then maybe I'll even be able to help him.
"I need your help, Kotomine-shinpu. I only ask that you hear me out entirely before you make any decisions," Shirou pleaded as respectfully as he could.
Kirei's expression did not change. "I see. Sit, then, and speak," he said, gesturing to one of the wooden pews in the front row. Shirou bowed in thanks before he sat down across from the priest.
"I am a magus, and I seek help from Executor Kotomine to eliminate a potential dead apostle," Shirou stated as formally as he could. Unfortunately, he knew precious little about the Magus Association's official procedures concerning the church, so he would just have to hope he sounded professional enough.
Kirei straightened further. His expression steeled. "I see. What is the situation?"
"Matou Zouken has existed for nearly five hundred years, focusing almost solely on the Holy Grail War. Zouken was one of the Grail's creators, and planned to use it to gain immortality, to my knowledge. He uses crest worms to extend his life artificially, but he needs to feed on living beings to continue to survive, classifying him as a dead apostle," he explained. "He currently lives inside his adopted heir, Matou Sakura. His main body lives in or next to her heart, I don't know which. But if we exorcise him, he'll probably kill his host out of spite, and I'm concerned with Sakura living above everything else."
Kirei looked down at him, an eyebrow raised. "If everything is as you say, child, then it is too dangerous to worry about the continued survival of a doomed girl. I will have to contact the Executors, and we will handle the problem."
"I refuse. Matou Sakura's survival is more important to me than Zouken's death. With your help, I believe I can kill him without killing Sakura, but I'll need time," Shirou disputed bluntly.
"I see no reason to acknowledge your request. The Executors will take care of this."
"If you ever want to learn anything about yourself, you won't call them," he threw his cards on the table. If Kirei was what Shirou thought he was, this was the best chance he had at getting his way.
Kotomine's eyebrow raised. "Oh? What would you profess to know about me, child?" the priest asked, seemingly torn between bemusement and annoyance.
"I know that you're empty," Shirou revealed. "Before the Grail War, you did some research on the other potential participants. That research became useless once the Grail was destroyed, but you were particularly interested in Emiya Kiritsugu. You couldn't figure out what his motives were, so you assumed he was empty."
He suddenly had Kirei's full attention.
"Kiritsugu wasn't an empty man, but even if he was, you never were able to find him. He never stays in one place. You still haven't found your answer, so you've been stuck in this rut, looking for some kind of true purpose. You haven't found anything you can take joy in," Shirou surmised. Hopefully, he was able to guess correctly. He didn't have all the information of this world's Kirei, but if he was as lost as he seemed, the changes Kiritsugu made were likely the catalyst.
"And how would you know any of this, child?" Kirei asked him, his eyes taking on a curious gleam.
"My name is Emiya Shirou, and I'm a casualty of the Second Magic," Shirou began. "I'm also one of the few people in the world that understands you."
"Explain," Kotomine demanded.
Emiya inhaled deeply.
"It's a bit of a long story," he began. "Emiya Kiritsugu had fought in the Grail War, instead of destroying it. He only found out the Grail had been cursed at the end of the war, at the final battle, and forced his servant to destroy it. The curse burned down over a city block and killed around five hundred people.
"I was seven at the time, and I was one of the only survivors of that curse. Kiritsugu saved me after I had essentially died. I wasn't much of a person at that point. The fire took my memory from me, and I haven't remembered how to be human since. I mainly imitated my father and other people that I saw, and I eventually took on my father's dream of saving people. When he saved me, he looked like the happiest man in the world, and my perception of happiness was solely focused on that salvation."
Kirei nodded. "I see. And you could not feel any satisfaction or accomplishment from anything else," he surmised.
"I felt worthless. I didn't feel like I deserved to live when nearly everyone else died. Trying to save people was the closest thing I could find to atonement, so I put everything I had into working towards that goal. I eventually figured out that I was never really trying to save people, though. I was just trying to save myself." Shirou paused for a second, trying not to get lost in old memories.
"My father died from the Grail's curse about five years after he saved me. Five years later, the Fifth Holy Grail War began, and I met you, the proctor of the war at the time, and one of the only survivors of the Fourth War."
"And you knew I could be trusted because you met me in this other dimension?" Kotomine asked.
"No," Shirou responded wryly. "I knew I could trust you because you're not like the Kotomine Kirei I knew."
Kirei's eyebrow raised. "How was I different?"
"You were smiling."
Kirei froze. His eyes glassed over, and he seemed to forget how to breathe. Shirou could only imagine what maelstrom he had caused in the man's head.
"The Kotomine Kirei I knew was always smiling. He was smug, like he somehow knew something important that you didn't. And he would never give you that information until he knew it would hurt you the most. He never lied, but the complete truth was a weapon to him, only unsheathed and wielded at the exact time it would be most impactful. Kotomine Kirei was a master of cutting truths."
Shirou had to pause as Archer's arm throbbed, pain scorching up his shoulder, and small glimpses of memory flashed by. A peaceful talk with the priest, a golden Servant with thousands of weapons, an underground passage of decomposing bodies. Kirei's haunting chuckle, as if he was congratulating Shirou for finding his secret. Fellow orphans of the fire.
He felt sick. Shirou had known that Kirei was a monster, but he had rather liked him, still. They were kindred, even if their goals were opposed. If he had known that Kirei was doing this earlier on, would he have allied with the man so willingly?
He hated that the answer was not immediately no.
If he had known from the very beginning, then surely not, but if he had found out later on, after he took out Zouken's crest worms from Sakura? After he had thrown away his ideals? After he had truly understood who Kotomine Kirei was?
Shirou might have still worked with him. After all, the bodies couldn't be saved. He was prepared to sacrifice the entire world to save Sakura, so seeing it more intimately would not change his answer, only make it more painful.
He was grateful this Kirei did not seem to have given in to his desires yet. It made him far easier to work with.
"Kotomine was a man that lived to cause pain, to himself and others. It was the only joy he ever managed to achieve, and he took it out on anyone and everyone he could, even himself. He would manipulate people to struggle with and abandon their dreams, to turn family members against each other, and he reveled in the misery that they brought upon themselves and each other. His grand plan was simply to witness the birth of All the World's Evils to watch humanity burn, even if accomplishing it would kill him."
Kirei exhaled as if punched in the gut. The air was forced out of his lungs as he took a step backwards to regain his balance and collect himself.
"I always wondered if I could find some way to overcome this. I've prayed to God that he would let me feel normal emotions, and I have received no answer for many years. Perhaps I can leave this world peacefully, then, before I become so reprehensible," Kirei muttered at least partially to himself.
Shit. This isn't what I was hoping for. I need to salvage this.
"Just because you don't feel good about doing the right thing doesn't mean it's not worth doing, is it?" Shirou responded, hoping to curb Kotomine's suddenly suicidal thought process before he went and committed the deed and left him alone to deal with Zouken.
"Isn't one such as yourself rather biased?" the priest countered.
"Maybe so, but I don't think that doing the right thing and making something hurt are mutually exclusive. Aren't there lots of apostles and monstrous mages out there, committing atrocities? Fiends whose deaths would benefit humanity?" Shirou thought of Archer's service as a Counter Guardian, in which he had slaughtered far more innocent people than Shirou had described, all for the continued survival of mankind.
Kirei fixed him with a cold stare, unfeeling and unrepentant. Shirou had never truly been at the end of the man's displeasure before, and he could understand why his father thought the priest to be such a threat from the moment they had met. Kotomine was a terror.
"You're just trying to secure my assistance in killing Zouken," Kotomine accused.
"That's always been my goal, I stated that already. The issue is just making sure Sakura doesn't die."
"And that's where I come in?" Kirei asked sardonically.
"Kind of," Shirou admitted, scratching his head. "I need time to develop a more concrete plan, and I need to hide my magic from Zouken. You have a holy shroud that you gave me in my timeline to suppress powerful magic. I'll need it so I can get close without causing suspicion."
"You plan to set up a trap?" Kirei asked, giving no indication whether or not he would agree to or reject his demands.
"A stasis field is the best idea I have at the moment, but it'll mean that I need to get close to the estate and set it up without him noticing, or somehow lure him or Sakura into it."
Shirou carefully did not mention that he had no clue how to set up a stasis field in the first place, but he was confident he could get his hands on a bounded field tome in time. Perhaps he could even get Kirei to purchase one with the Church's resources, though that was fairly unlikely. He would most likely have to steal Noble Phantasms from museums and replace them with forgeries. If he could sell legitimate artifacts to mages, he might be able to get his hands on some masterclasses on bounded fields.
Hell, he might be able to sell the Noble Phantasms to Rin if she could procure the books he needed.
"Tell me something, Emiya Shirou," Kotomine began. "Were you sincere in your belief that I could still do good?"
Shirou stared back evenly. "I don't think many would mind if you enjoyed the dying screams of a vampire. Applied suffering is sometimes necessary, and sometimes beneficial. I would have been much worse off if the Kotomine Kirei I knew hadn't manipulated me into abandoning my dream, even if it was for his own benefit. So long as you aren't truly crippling or destroying innocent people, you can still find joy while accomplishing good deeds in the long run."
"What would you have been if your Kotomine had not convinced you to turn your back on your ambition?" Kirei asked curiously.
"I would have killed the woman I loved," Shirou responded tonelessly. He had to clench his hands until they nearly bled just to stop them from shaking. "And it would have destroyed me."
Kirei smiled, just a bit. Shirou doubted that the priest even realized it.
"I see."
"So, will you help me?" Shirou requested, hoping to wrap up their discussion so he could return to his family. It was getting a bit late, and he hadn't told them when he would be back.
Kotomine sat in thought for a bit. His expression evened out and made no discernable changes for a while.
"There will be conditions," he answered slowly. "In exchange for the Shroud of Martin, you will owe the Holy Church one favor that they may collect once your goals have been accomplished."
Shirou nodded. Not entirely unexpected, even if giving his services to the Church was a bit dubious. Worst case scenario, they would likely have him assassinate some mage that they believed to be committing heresies or tracking down a nest of ghouls or the like. Neither were ideal, but both were feasible. "Done."
"And for my silence on the matter, we will meet regularly and discuss your history with your Grail War, and our involvement. If I am assigned any missions by the Eight Sacrament, I may also enlist you to join," Kirei finished.
"Fine," Shirou responded. Despite how uncomfortable Kotomine made him, and how evil a human being he could be, Shirou still felt a kinship between them, however strange.
"Then I believe that is all. Meet me here this weekend, after Mass. We can discuss this further then," Kotomine dismissed him.
Shirou stood up and bowed farewell before turning away and walking out of the forlorn church. As he opened the ornate wooden doors to leave, though, the priest stopped him.
"A final question," Kirei started. Shirou looked back at him, hands still on the doors.
"What became of me in your world? What happened to us in the end?"
He looked like he almost dreaded the answer.
Shirou pursed his lips, setting his expression. He inhaled, then exhaled, locking eyes with Kotomine.
"I killed you."
He walked out of the church into its courtyard, where the sun was setting low in the sky and a sharp wind raced across the open space. Shirou had no desire to see the priest's reaction.
Kirei's unsettling, hysterical laughter followed him into the dusk.