I woke to a song.
"The loveliest maiden is sitting
So wondrously fair up there.
Her golden jewelry glist'ning,
She combs her fair golden hair."
It was Illya's. I had heard it before, but not in Japanese.
I felt like I had slept for a long, long time, then roused from a dream I couldn't remember.
I looked around. I was still in the cavern beneath Ryudo Temple but it was
different, somehow. It was not the lack of the corrupted grail either, the ground, even the air itself were so similar and yet so fundamentally different that I couldn't begin to guess at why.
Illya was walking around the well-worn stones of the cavern, her eyes closed, her dress giving off a gentle radiance, the crown on her head so askew I was surprised it hadn't already fallen off.
"With a golden comb caressing,
She sings a golden song.
It has a wondrous power,
A magical Melo-
Illya stopped short, and I realized she had noticed I was awake. She looked a little silly, bug-eyed, her mouth slightly ajar.
"Shirou?" she questioned.
"Illya," I said. It was a relief being able to speak so easily. I sat up, feeling strangely light. After a moment I realized it wasn't anything special, just a general lack of pain. "Are you okay?"
She looked at me strangely for a moment, then answered, smiling cheerfully: "I'm not sure. Probably not."
She skipped from place to place as she ran towards me, light as a feather, the thin red cloth hanging around her neck like pennants flapping in the breeze; her long, billowing sleeves making it look like she had wings. She stopped just out of reach, hands clasped behind her back, back slightly bowed, looking up at me.
She smiled.
"I suppose fate took a different turn, after all," she told me.
I didn't understand, but then again I didn't expect to. Everyone involved in the Grail War was smarter than me.
"This isn't where we were," I said.
"Multidimensional refraction phenomenon," she said authoritatively, straightening up. "I'm impressed you noticed, Shirou." At this point she knew better than to try to explain it to me more clearly, and immediately added, apparently for my benefit: "It's the Second Magic!"
It was like ringing a distant bell. I knew I knew
something about it, but it felt related to a weapon I had discarded.
"Ah, Illya, my memories are still a little-" I made a wavy motion with my hand, "fractured."
It'd be more accurate to say they were ruined. In creating Excalibur I had sundered a piece of my soul. It was a small price, and one that I would willingly pay again, but it was not something that I would ever be getting back. I wondered how many memories I had lost.
It was an idle musing: I still had my most important ones.
"Shirou?" she asked.
I shrugged nonchalantly. I felt wind blow over my bare skin: my shirt and pants were in tatters. "Nothing to worry about. Second Magic?"
She took a breath, thought, then said: "To put it simply, we are in a different world."
I nodded slowly. That fit with what I had gleaned from my surroundings. "That makes sense."
"Shirou," she said, sounding pained. "This is the crystallization of True Magic, a phenomenon one step removed from the Root. Try to be a
little more appreciative."
I felt like I should have understood something then. Something that had gone unstated, behind the smile that she wore with such casual ease.
I didn't.
"The war is over now," I said. Rider had taken Rin and Sakura out of the cave. That meant they had both survived: Rider was someone that you could trust. Whether they had come over with us to this world, I was not sure. Still, I would find them again. "Let's go home."
"Oh Shirou," she said, shaking her head. When I cocked my head, at her she shrugged, saying: "Ah, this dream is too sweet."
"It's not a dream," I told her, absently fixing the crown on her head before it could fall off completely.
"Of course it-
Shirou-" she said, aghast, staring at my hand like it was poisonous blade.
"Illya?" I asked.
"That's
dangerous," she said seriously. "Don't touch me, not while I - you could have hurt yourself."
"Okay," I said easily.
"And," she said crossly, "that's not what I meant. I know this isn't a sleeping dream. It's a real one, which makes it worse."
"There's a difference?" I asked.
I could hear her roll her eyes. As she started talking about metaphysics, I let her words wash over me, trying to take in their meaning, even if the vocabulary eluded me. In the end, I was sure only of the fact I had no idea what she was talking about.
"Shirou, are you listening?" she asked. Something in the timbre of her voice had changed, but I couldn't quite place it.
"I'm trying to," I told her honestly.
"Shirou, when were you going to tell me you knew German?"
Before I could answer that completely unexpected statement, I caught sight of a dark purple blur, leaping across the walls of the cave in a way that no human could match. In less time it took for me to think, I stepped in front of Illya, covering her completely with my body, the only weapon I could trace appearing in the air in front of my right hand. I didn't exactly expect it to work - I was hoping for a hollow copy,
something, anything to defend myself and her with.
Instead, I got Excalibur.
No, not Excalibur. No one who saw it and knew the beauty and grandeur of the original would make such a mistake. It would be easier to mistake the faraway glow of Venus for the Sun. This was not the sword of Promised Victory. This was its corrupted twin, the gold filigree turned dark and hungry, the otherworldly parts of it changed into something fearsome and demonic. Where it had once shone like burnished silver, it glowed a sullen, angry red.
I looked at it, as surprised as if I had just summoned the moon.
Then it landed in my hand.
The darkness leeched straight out of it, beginning at the tip and sinking straight into my palm. I watched, confused, as it transformed into a holy weapon once more, one fit for the once and future King. Then the hilt began to burn my hand, enough that I could smell my flesh char.
That sort of pain was nothing. I took a stance, my feet wide, both hands gripping the guard.
Rider dropped in front of us, she had her chain-daggers out, her long hair strewn behind her, nearly touching the ground.
"Shirou," she said cautiously, "Are you yourself?"
I dismissed Excalibur, watching it vanish into motes of light. My hands felt painful, but I hadn't lost sensation in them. Second degree burns at worst.
"I... yes. Sorry, Rider."
"Caution is admirable," she contradicted. "Sakura would be unhappy to see you hurt." She looked over to Illya. "Were you the one to make him... whole again?"
Illya shook her head, looking thoughtfully at me. "No, I cannot take credit for
this miracle. Who knows, perhaps the Grail was not as corrupted as we had thought."
Rider nodded seriously, though she sounded skeptical. "Perhaps." She looked back towards the entrance. "Please, hurry. I do not like the smell of this land. It has the feel of a different Age. An Age where gods roam, and boys like Shinji grow up to be heroes."
Then she was gone, fast as she had come.
"So," Illya said brightly, turning back to me as if Rider hadn't just made an appearance. "When
did you learn German, Shirou? Did Kiritsugu teach it to you?"
"I never learned German," I answered, puzzled. I was walking a little faster now - Illya had to struggle to keep up. I resisted the urge to carry her like I had while being chased down by Berserker: if Illya said it was dangerous, I would trust her.
"But you're speaking it right now," she told me.
I didn't stop, but I did slow my stride. "I am?"
"Yup!"
"Huh," I said. Then I shrugged. "How odd."
She laughed outright, then. It was a beautiful sound, pure and delighted. My heart clenched: I wished Kiritsugu could have heard it.
"You do not have even the slightest drop of a magus' soul anywhere in you, do you?" she asked me. It wasn't an insult, but I didn't think it to be a compliment either. Just a description, a plain statement of fact.
"Perhaps I would have done better, if I had," I said.
"Nope!" she said happily. "There can be a million minor mages, all scrabbling in the dirt to reach the Root, but only one Shirou. My o
touto."
She'd switched back to Japanese - and I
did hear the shift. It was a little spooky, suddenly being able to understand a different language. It'd be weird enough if it were English, which I had actually studied, but German?
Like I said, odd.
"Can't you call me your onii-san, at least?" I asked.
She stuck out her tongue in reply.
Although we bickered like siblings, it was a tentative, fragile sort of squabbling. An act, beautiful in its own way, but untrue. Our smiles hid our true selves.
Not even three days ago, Illya had told me she didn't have long to live. She'd said it matter-of-fact, without drama or emotion, a prophecy made all the more awful by how coolly it had been delivered.
How long did she have? A month? A year? I couldn't even begin to guess.
"Hey, Illya," I began.
The cavern shook. I grabbed her arm before she could fall, snatching one of her long billowing sleeves. She looked at my hand in horror, then in confusion, then exasperation.
"Huh. I guess you really aren't human anymore," she said softly.
"How did you come to
that con-"
There was an explosion of noise and a sudden
presence that made my hair stand on end. My eyesight sharpened, and my body reacted. Before Illya could say anything, I had picked her up, and ran the remaining hundred meters within three seconds.
We were outside.
We weren't far enough. I didn't know if getting out of
Japan would have been far enough. Not against something like that. It felt had felt like Angra Mainyu had, except made of fire and anger, instead of mud and malice.
My throat was dry, my arms trembled. I didn't know if Excalibur would be enough if it had already entered the world.
"Shirou," Rider said, suddenly by my side. She held Sakura in one arm, Rin in the other. She'd found a cloak for Sakura somewhere, and bandages for Rin. Both were still unconscious. "We should retreat."
The rumbling did not cease: if anything, it grew larger, more ponderous. Then its maker strode into full view.
The heat made Illya gasp - Rider and I jumped back to a safer distance.
I couldn't help but gape. He held a flaming sword in one dark blue hand, a noose in the other. A rictus of fury adorned his features. He was surrounded by a nimbus of flames so red they looked artificial. I had seen him before, in his own alcove in the Temple above. Fudo-Myo-o, paramount among the Five Radiant Kings and principle protector of the Five Wisdom Buddhas. An incarnation of Buddha's wrath sublimated into... I couldn't recall the rest of Issei's explanation.
"
Unclean Ones, you dare disturb Amidabutsu's rest? Know your shame!"
-----------------------
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