This is what I have so far of Chapter 4. The last bit is pretty rough, so expect some revisions.
EDIT: Full chapter up!
Chapter 4: Disjunction
Saturday, 2/2 – Evening
Sakura
That night, she dreamt of a simpler time, a memory of when she was young.
She saw him while leaving school one day: a young boy on the field, dashing towards the high jump bar.
Time and time again, he tried to soar. Time and time again, the laws of physics refused to cooperate with him, and he was sent tumbling to the ground far short of his goal. It didn’t seem to register, though, as he would just get up and try again.
Never mind that he was covered in scrapes and bruises. Never mind that no one was around to see him struggle. Never mind that it was a hopeless endeavor, with the bar set far too high for a boy of his age. All he wanted was to reach it, regardless of what it would do to him.
It was the most stupid, inspiring, and saddening thing she had ever seen. Stupid, in that he was aiming for something that he had no chance of reaching. Inspiring, in that he did it anyway, with an iron determination that rejected the very idea of giving up. Saddening, in that she could never replicate that courage, no matter how badly she wished she could.
It would be useless to her anyways. Such resolve would only be broken by Grandfather’s relentless “treatments”, with pain being the only thing to show for it. She could only watch him from afar, like a moth to a lantern flame: close enough to be illuminated by his light, but separate enough to avoid being burned by the intensity of the very radiance she craved.
She watched him for a long time.
=======
Caster
[Twoa: Yay! Meninges time! Though coup-contrecoup injuries usually make them all bloody and sticky…]
[III A: Really, I’m not sure why you made that psychopathic comment to Lancer back there. It’s not like you need to do circuit extractions anymore.]
[Twob: Because it was funny?]
Her mind had a point. Cleaning up wasn’t technically part of the bargain , and spiritual dissections were no longer necessary now that she had a more direct way to achieve her objective.
Force of habit? Paranoia about the conditions of the geis? The last vestiges of her moral compass, telling her to at least look at the face of the person she’d just killed? It didn’t really matter to her anymore, and pursuing that line of thought would only distract her from what was actually important. She wanted to, so she did.
Besides, feeling sorry for yourself never brought anyone back from the dead. She had tried that already.
[1B: Hate to interrupt my own little introspection, but... he’s moving again.]
… what?
Sure enough, the boy was moving, in the sort of panicked limp reserved for the wounded who found themselves on the wrong side of a battlefield. He definitely looked the part: the front of his sweater had been blown away, revealing an angry-looking burn covering his midsection, while his arms were charred raw, presumably since he had tried to shield himself. The back of his hood was stained red with blood, and the blood running from his back indicated that he had sustained abrasions from when he skidded along the asphalt. Given the evident physical damage and myriad internal injuries he must be suffering from (severe concussion, pneumothorax in one or both lungs, etc.), it was amazing that he could even stand, much less move.
This guy doesn’t know how to give up, does he?
[iii b: said the kettle to the pot.]
She could let him go. Any of his attempts to inform the world about tonight’s events would probably be written up as trauma-induced hallucinations, assuming he even survived the night. Really, the probability of him being an information leak was essentially zero.
Besides, Lancer had never said anything about ensuring he stayed down.
…
Spek. Arrow configuration: All astral severing. Full charge. Let’s make it quick.
>> … are you sure about this?
It’s not a problem, right? You should have enough space for that inscription, now that we don’t have to apply all those long-range compensation spells anymore.
>> I was talking about the fact that we still want to kill him. What’s with the bloodlust all of a sudden? It’s not like us.
Bloodlust? No, it definitely wasn’t that.
She had spared the lives of strangers before. Saved them, even. That always came back to haunt her.
It was more than that, though. For whatever reason, it seemed that the impossible was a regular occurrence for her. She had done things that were considered undoable, had had things happen to her that were too preposterous to even think about accounting for. Though the likelihood of the boy becoming a problem was pretty much nil, the probability of her reliving this War was also pretty much nil, and look how that turned out.
True, it was hardly a statistically robust pattern. But could she let this boy go, on the off chance that doing so would somehow destroy her resolve, sabotage her ability to save them when she had the opportunity? Was the possibility of losing him again worth it when compared to the life of an innocent bystander?
She didn’t need to think about it.
>> … alright then.
Of course it wasn’t.
=======
Shirou
Shirou was in awe of his hood’s tenacity. Despite everything that had happened, it was still stuck to his head. The matted blood probably helped.
He was in pain. That went without saying.
He was jogging, somehow. It took all his concentration just to stay upright.
Why am I running again?
He wasn’t really sure. Something about bright spears and red lights or something. His memories were fuzzy. His mind, swirling about in a disorienting fashion, didn’t seem to know that it was supposed to stay inside his skull.
Stop that.
He nearly did. Running, that is. But for some reason, he kept going. It was as if something was pulling him home.
Home. Right. He wanted to get home. But why run? He was only a couple of meters from his house. Surely he didn’t have to run when it was so close. In his current state, he was more likely to trip and fall on his face, and he really didn’t want that for some reason.
FssssssssSSSSSSS
That sounded familiar. It also sounded wrong, like it was coming towards him instead of moving away from –
The arrow hitting the wall directly in front of him was enough to make Shirou remember exactly why he was running.
=======
Caster
[iii b: GAAAAAAAAAAAAH! FUCK!]
[Twoa: I think what threebie here is trying to say is that you just blew out your right rhomboid muscle.]
That would definitely explain why she missed.
Dammit. Such an easy target, too: a slowly moving human 500 meters out. She only missed by a couple of centimeters, but that was more than enough.
Boom
The arrow self-destructed. The blast wasn’t as powerful as that of dedicated explosive arrows, but it still would’ve had a slight stunning effect if he was close enough. Of course, by the time it detonated, he was already far enough away. Naturally.
Is my right arm in good enough condition to hold the bow?
[Twoa: Probably, if you don’t mind threebie hating you even more.]
When have I ever?
[iii b: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAH! GODDAMN IT!]
She switched the bow to her right hand and drew with her left, a direct violation of the kyudo method she’d learned. Her right arm was slightly shaky, which explained the dramatic increase of her circular error probable. Still, she still had a 74% chance to hit from this range, now 400 meters out. Since she had six arrows left, this virtually guaranteed that at least one of them would hit. For this particular arrow type, one hit was all she needed.
Sight in. Relax. There is nothing but the target. All she could see was the target.
The moment before she released the arrow, all she could see was red.
[iii b: AAAAAUGH! FUCK! FUCK! AAAAAH!]
[Twoa: That was your right eye going bye-bye.]
She opened her left eye. The arrow had gone extremely wide, missing the target completely and embedding itself in a familiar-looking doorway.
Feelings of frustration welled up before she locked them out. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have lost track of her body condition like that. This wasn’t like her.
Wait. Speaking of losing track of important things, wasn’t that the door to –
Boom
The boy barged through the explosively-unlocked gates to the Emiya estate and made for the house.
…
Shirou’s house.
…
Shirou.
In an instant, her mental walls were temporarily overwhelmed by the parts of her consciousness she’d been repressing, a torrent of memories, personality fragments, and pent-up emotions: nostalgia and grief and resolve and madness and ecstasy and need and pain and sorrow and loneliness and rage and joy and emptiness and hope and hopelessness and LOVE and HATE and WHY DID YOU HAVE TO –
While Caster’s core partition, the seat of her personality and final authority on all her decisions, tried to re-contain this mess, her subpartitions continued to work, shielded from the mental turmoil.
[1A: Target has entered se – Emiya residence grounds.]
[1B: Still can’t get a positive ID on him. Damn that hoodie. How is that hood still up?]
[Twoa: OHMYGOD CAN WE PLEASE FOLLOW HIM? PLEASE PLEASE PLEAS – oh, but Shirou might not like having to clean up a dead body…]
[Twob: Hah! This is convenient. After we take this kid out, we’ll be in the perfect place to prevent Saber from being summoned. Sometimes, life just works out all right.]
[III A: … I think we should call off the attack and see what happens. Isn’t anyone else getting a really bad feeling about all this?]
[iii b: YES, IF PAIN COUNTS AS A “BAD FEELING”.]
It took a couple of seconds for her to get her mind back under control, an eternity for someone running on constant thought acceleration. To help her refocus, she asked herself a simple question.
Why did he go in there?
It was a coincidence, nothing more. The desperate boy simply wanted to find a place of safety, and when the opportunity arose, he seized it. She couldn’t fault his choice, as the Emiya house was better than most. Thankfully, it was unlikely that he had more than a passing acquaintance with the proprietor, since Shirou wasn’t the most social person over the course of his short life.
It would be a problem if Shirou woke up, though: it would be just like him to take in a nearly-dead stranger appearing out of the darkness of the night. While it would be easy enough to wipe his memory, any action she took towards him would only increase the danger he was in, as she was sure Zouken was monitoring her every move. Giving him more leverage than he already had wasn’t something she intended to do.
Plus, she wouldn’t put it past Shirou to summon Saber in defense of another, especially since she still wasn’t sure why Saber was summoned at all. Her original plan was almost as messed up as her eye, but she could still try to keep Shirou from entering the War.
If worst came to worst, she could always try projecting that iridescent dagger, though considering her current mental and physical instability she wasn’t sure if she could pull it off anymore. Additionally, her odds of actually being able to hit Saber with it were not encouraging, especially when factoring in the disorientation that came with using those unique magic circuits and the poor state her body as currently in.
She could have Spek do it, though trying to rush a projection like that would likely fry the cloak’s projection capabilities, which would be sorely needed in a direct confrontation with Saber. In short, having to deal with Saber would probably result in Caster’s premature demise.
Better to just kill this kid now before he causes any more trouble, like going into the house or something.
[1B: He’s gone inside the house.]
Fuck.
=======
Shirou
He wasn’t sure why he had grabbed the umbrella by the door. It just felt good to hold onto something that could be a weapon. Reassuring.
Gripping it like a sword, he cautiously but quickly made his down the hall, heading for the shed out back. Shirou had no idea where his unseen assailant was, but judging from their persistence it was likely that they would be arriving on the premises at any moment. When that happened, it would be better if he was in a good hiding place, ready to ambush his attacker if they happened to find him.
He didn’t know if that would do him much good, but it was better than nothing.
A cloud passed in front of the moon, cutting off the moonlight that illuminated the hallway. Although Shirou knew his home well enough to navigate by feel, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the newborn darkness, as he didn’t want to turn on the lights and give away his position.
Thus, by the time he reached the end of the hallway and noticed the holes in the ceiling and the strange looking arrows embedded in the floor behind him, it was already far too late.
BOOM
In an act of desperation, Shirou deployed the umbrella and tried to Reinforce it. To his astonishment, it worked, blocking the initial wave of projectiles.
BOOM
It was also somewhat useful against the secondary explosions, though it did nothing to absorb his new backwards momentum. Again, Shirou felt weightless as he was hurled backwards.
CRASH
He wasn’t having much luck with windows tonight.
=======
Caster
The boy was blasted through one of the sliding glass doors, tumbled a bit, and landed face-down in the yard. For some odd reason, he was holding an open umbrella.
[Twob: Hah! We should call that one the “Rainmaker”! Makes glass fly and people cry! And reach for their umbrellas. Sounds a lot better than ‘Arrow Configuration: 3 parts woodcutter, 3 parts launcher: claymore, gem, 1 part scanning’, anyway.]
[1B: … Twob, sometimes your horrible names make me want to cry.]
[iii b: IF WE STILL HAD TEAR DUCTS, THAT’S WHAT I’D MAKE US DO ALL THE TIME.]
Well, there was no way that Shirou wasn’t awake now. She only had a couple seconds before he came investigating.
Spek, rewrite the remaining long-range arrows we have for pure explosive power. Full charge. I don’t trust my aim right now, so might as well make it a non-issue.
>> First one ready in a second.
She was only 100 or so meters from the house and descending rapidly. Her trajectory would put her right next to the holes she’d made with the woodcutters (modified to punch through tile), where Spek could reconnect with the arrows she’d fired inside earlier and monitor Shirou’s position.
[III A: No one else finds it odd that he got into the house in the first place? Or that the lights are still out, even though Shirou should be home by now?]
Ugh. III A was being nitpicky again. That subpartition was invaluable when dealing with all things magical, but its constant criticisms and general negativity could be quite grating at times.
The form on the ground started moving again. At this point, she wasn’t surprised that he had just survived two miniature, arrow-mounted claymores at point-blank range.
Of course, that’s why she currently had an extremely powerful gem-arrow nocked and ready to fire.
[1A: III A has a point. It is unlike Shirou to leave the doors to his house unlocked if he is away, and there are no signs of forced entry in the front of the house.]
The boy got up. She fired. A bell rang.
[1B: Wait. Doesn’t the Emiya residence’s bounded field only respond to those with malicious intent towards its residents? Does the house consider the kid a guest, even though Shirou hasn’t invited him in yet?]
As she landed on the roof, a large explosion consumed the yard. No matter how tenacious he was, it was unlikely that the boy could’ve survived that unassisted.
Spek. That connection?
Her mind was entertaining some funny ideas. Ideas that pointed to a ludicrous conclusion.
The boy couldn’t be Shirou.
No, it was impossible. All she needed to do to disprove it was to wait for Spek to confirm his presence in the house, and everything would be fine.
[Twob: But it would be just like him to stay late and do some stupid job at school to help someone out, even if it meant staying long after classes ended. Wouldn’t it?]
Well, yes, it would. But it couldn’t be Shirou.
[iii b: WHY NOT?]
Because it was impossible.
[iii b: WHAT WAS THAT THING YOU SAID ABOUT THE IMPOSSIBLE AGAIN?]
>> There’s no one inside.
No.
Scan again!
>> I already did! Five times! There’s no one there!
AGAIN!
[Twoa: M-maybe he’s in the shed?]
The boy had survived, and was running for the old, definitely locked shed. He left behind a tattered umbrella.
His hoodie had finally given out, and though his back was to her, she could clearly see his rust-red hair before he unlocked the door to the storehouse and disappeared inside.
But it couldn’t be, right? Right? That was just… dried blood! Even though dried blood is usually brown or black.
And he probably just stole that key. The key to the old shed? The key that only Shirou… should… have…
She terminated that line of thought and jumped off the roof to follow him.
=======
Sakura
It was the chance of a lifetime.
He’d been burned, his shoulder broken. Since he lived alone, it would be tough for him to cook and clean with only his left arm.
So she became his right.
He was reluctant, at first. But she had learned something of persistence from him, and eventually he gave in. The day he had accepted her into his life was one of the happiest moments of her own.
He came to love her as something like a sister, and that was fine with her. She had never expected her crazy scheme to work, never believed that she would be able to bask in his light every single day. Like they always said in those stories, it was like a dream come true.
And deep in her subconscious, past the pain and exhaustion and self-loathing, she dared to wish for something even grander. Maybe, in time, his love might grow and blossom into something that could match or exceed her own. It was a wild, selfish, impossible wish, because while time was all she needed, her time was slowly running out.
But even if that dream never came to pass, she’d always remember that time, days when she truly felt a fragile hope. That life she spent with him, with the boy who seemed to shine like a star, would be forever woven in the fabric of her soul.
Deep in sleep, Sakura smiled. It would be nice if all her dreams could be like this one.
=======
Shirou
With a groan, the door slammed shut. The umbrella had finally given up on that last attack, and Shirou wondered why his attacker didn’t just make a blast that large in the first place. It certainly would’ve saved them both a lot of trouble.
Though his body was as torn up as his clothing, his mind seemed to get clearer. Was he just getting better at ignoring pain? He’d certainly gone through a crash course in pain tolerance up until now, and maybe it was finally starting to pay dividends.
Not that it would make a difference. He would die in this dark, lonely place, with only a crater in the floor being proof that Emiya Shirou had ever existed.
He was disturbed by that thought, though not for the reasons one might expect. He held no fear of death, as that had been burned out of him long ago. No, what he feared was the failure to become that which he had aspired to.
He would die without having the chance to live his dream.
Dammit.
He wouldn’t be missed by anyone, much. Except for Issei. And Taiga. And Sakura. And maybe Shinji.
DAMMIT.
Is that all he would be remembered as? A lonely orphan, who entertained childish dreams of becoming a hero? One swallowed by the night, mourned by few, and forgotten by the world at large?
DAMMIT.
No. He couldn’t die here. He had people to save. How could he do that if he couldn’t even save himself?
“DAMMIT, I –“
His mind was sharp. His survival was possible, obtainable, necessary. If he died here, those who called for a hero would die unanswered. If he died here, those who could’ve been saved would face their end without hope, just like him.
If he died here, he wouldn’t be able to face Kiritsugu in the next life.
“ – WON’T DIE MEANINGLESSLY –“
If only he had a sword.
“ – WHEN I HAVE SO MUCH LEFT TO DO!”
=======
Caster
In their panic, her partition subdivisions collapsed. She was grateful for the immediate reduction in thought volume.
[1: We have to pull back! There’s no way you could have known that it was Shirou until recently. The plan is no longer salvageable, but if we leave now we’ll at least be able to prevent –]
She turned off Partition 1. It was no longer being impartial.
[Two: This can’t be happening. He’s not dead again, right? Right? Oh god, we have to –]
She turned off Partition Two. It was no longer helpful in this situation.
[III: I could try to make you feel some remorse, but honestly you’re doing a better job than I ever could right now.]
She turned off Partition III. It was now redundant.
Now, she was at least alone in her head. Her mind was blank and intensely focused, if only because she would suffer a complete mental breakdown otherwise.
All she wanted was to see the face of the boy she’d almost killed, to confirm that it was the same boy she had spent her life trying to save.
The wind had picked up, and there was a characteristic buildup of astral energy inside the shed that could only indicate one thing: a summoning was taking place.
She hesitated briefly, then resumed moving towards the shed. Since Spektrum was now pouring all its resources into interfering with her movement, Caster had to fight for every step. Between that and the damage her legs had suffered during Lancer’s pursuit, the best she could manage was a brisk walk.
>> Stop! Going in there won’t accomplish anything! Do you want to die?!
Three meters away. Two meters. One.
>> You’ll be their enemy if they see you! Is that what you want to be?
She was right at door. She tried to move her arm to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
>> No! You’re not thinking straight! You’re not thinking at all!
Confirm: Core partition override of Spektrum emergency possession functionality.
>> Dammit, LISTEN TO ME!
She grabbed the handle.
>> PRISM!
Her old title, and what now served as her last name. She paid it no mind.
She pulled once. The rusted door didn’t budge.
>> TOMATO TOHMATOU!
Ordinarily, that particular nickname definitely would’ve gotten her attention. These circumstances were far from ordinary, though.
She pulled harder. The door gave slightly as a gust of air escaped from inside the shed.
>> SAKURA!
The door opened, and her worst fears were confirmed.
“… no.”
=======
A flash of light, a shining knight, and the voice of his salvation.
“I ask of you, are you my Master?”
He had called, and hope had answered.
The same could not be said for her.
