Fate/Clusterfuck (Fate/Stay Night)

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[X] [Stay]

My self preservation instincts deep considerations are telling me this is the choice of all time the right answer.
 
Tough choice. I love Ilya, and it physically pains me, but...

[x] [Flee]

I must go. My people need me.

I shall endeavour to be the Shiroest Shirou to ever Shirou so that others would not feel bad about voting for sensible sub-Shirou things.
 
[X] Stay

As much as I love medea and mordred they can hold their own at the moment. Ilya on the other hand is here and wants/needs her little big brother and by God she will have him. This quest will end in one giant happy family if I have anything to say about it.
 
Even assuming that Rider is being truthful, it's already morning. Presumably, hours have passed since Shirou was knocked out. The fight between Saber and Angry Not-Saber – legally distinct from Red "umu" Saber – is probably over already.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Erien on Mar 10, 2023 at 11:45 AM, finished with 58 posts and 35 votes.
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2.6 - The Sister
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    • [Stay]

    Thanks to @Armoury for the beta!

    —

    You… don't have a lot of options. A certain, very loud and desperate part of your brain was screaming at you to leave. To make a break for it. To get back to the house and help Caster and Rin. That was your purpose in life, your goal, that was what you were saved for to begin with. You had to help people.

    But…

    You didn't know where you even were. Even if you got out of here, even if the servant was lying. You had never seen anything close to this near Fuyuki. Even a glance out the window showed a thick, snow covered forest as far as the eye could see. With precisely none of it resembling the surroundings of Fuyuki in any way. Were you still even in Japan? You had no idea, you had no idea how long you were even unconscious. The one thing you had at the moment, the one thing that kept you at least somewhat anchored, was the fact that your command seals were still present on your wrist. Which meant, hopefully, that Medea was still alive. Whether that meant anything regarding the second servant you had no idea, but for now… you would trust in Caster.

    You look back towards the other servant, you had a sense the woman was studying you despite her apparent blindness. "I don't wish to stay, but I don't know the way back. And Illya seemingly wanted me here for a reason, and I want to know why."

    "Do you not care about your servant?"

    You glare at the woman. "Of course I do. But I also trust her, and I assume Illya doesn't plan on keeping me here forever. I don't trust you enough to believe you wouldn't stab me in the back the moment I stepped outside this mansion."

    "Harsh words." The servant says, amusement in her voice. "Bravado?"

    You don't answer, instead just stare at the woman. Then she fades from you, turning into little motes of golden light before she is gone completely from view. Leaving you alone in the pastel colored, gaudy child's room with naught but a plate of pancakes for company and your own thoughts.

    —

    They were good pancakes, but now that you had gotten your senses fully back in order you were about ready to find out what was actually going on in this… mansion. Pushing yourself off of the bed you make your way through the room towards the large and heavy wooden door. It was a good seven feet tall and looked thicker than every wall in your house combined. But, much to your relief you find it unlocked.

    It swings open with a long, drawn out creak, and you find yourself looking out into not a hallway, and… as you slightly were expecting you didn't find yourself staring into the maw of a torture chamber either. No, you were staring at a garden. Reds, purples and white flowers decorated out of season green grass. Despite the open air above, there was no snow here, it piled on the roofs surrounding the garden, but none fell directly onto it. Each bed was decorated in addition by little statues and fountains, giving an austere, European air to the entire scene that was hilariously out of place when compared to where you were fighting just a short… hopefully just a short time prior.

    The courtyard garden itself was a long rectangular thing, with a gazebo on one end, and a veranda overlooking the forest on the other. Surrounding it on all other sides was the building. A tall, multistoried building made of yellow brick and capped by tall and regal towers. It wasn't a mansion, it wasn't a manor. You had somehow managed to find yourself in a castle. Then, movement catches your eye. Standing up from where she had been hidden behind the flowers was a woman. She was dressed head to toe in… some form of maid outfit, and her eyes, blood red, meet your own for a moment before she wanders over to a different section of the flower bed to start pulling weeds, a wicker basket slung underneath one of her arms.

    You walk forward, your shoes clicking against the stone paving of the garden. It was… warm, that was the first thing you noticed as you moved. The snow falling in the air should have made this cold, even more so with the sheer amount of stone around. But it was… pleasant, almost spring-like in temperature here. You come to a stop a few feet away from the woman, the maid you suppose pulling at weeds with machine-like efficiency.

    "Where am I?" you ask.

    The woman pauses, then turns her head slowly to look at you with an interesting expression. Namely that she didn't have one to speak of. She wasn't looking at you flatly, she wasn't even making a show of being neutral. She just had no expression. No light in her eyes, and no curve to her lips.

    "The Einzbern Mansion," the maid replies.

    "Where… is that?" you ask.

    "Germany." The maid replies quietly, then returns to picking weeds.

    Your breath halted, shortly followed by our heart as you processed that statement. What!? How long were you ou-

    "That was a joke," the maid follows up. "Please watch your step around the flowers."

    You look down to see that you are still standing on the steps, though your heart is currently attempting to go for a walk on its own going by the pounding.

    "That was also a joke." The maid said, still no inflection in her tone.

    You draw in a deep breath, forcing yourself calm over the course of several seconds. If kyudo taught you anything it was how to do… that. Then you focus on the woman again. "Are we still in Japan?"

    The maid looks up at you from her work, then slowly nods.

    "Where's Illya?"

    She raises a pale finger to point past you towards the gazebo, where indeed on closer inspection you could make out Illya through the gaps of the wood. You couldn't tell what she was doing or if she was looking your way. But another maid was present there, staring directly at you.

    "Thanks." You say, then leave the maid behind to walk over.

    The gazebo, like everything else here, was fancy. White wood, intricately carved with golden decoration inlaid all over it. A white marble table sat in the center of it, next to which Illya sat on a white and gold chair, a tea set steaming into the air in front of her as she eyed you. You came to a stop at the entrance of the thing looking into it. Illya was as you last saw her, though her expression was painfully flat. A deliberate controlled expression like royalty looking down upon their subjects, careful to show nothing.

    The maid standing just to her right however, made no such effort. She was near identical to the other one down to the paleness of the skin and the color of the eyes. The only change was that this one was remarkably more… svelte, would be the polite way to put it. She was, in any case, outwardly glaring at you, her eyes narrowed.

    "So you are staying?" Illya asks.

    "I would think your servant told you that already," you reply. "You seemed to know who I was, I wanted to know why."

    Illya tilts her head slightly, her white hair shifting behind her. "I didn't expect you to leave your room so early. Do you not care about your servant mister?"

    … She worded that exactly as the purple-haired servant did. You give the same answer. "I trust my servant to be safe and fine, if I could help her right now I would. But I don't know where I am or what is going on." You close your eyes then shake your head. "She is strong, and if you wanted me dead I would be already. Your servant easily got away with me, killing me would be… easy." You step forward into the gazebo, coming to a stop just across from Illya with the table standing between you. "You brought me here for a reason, I want to go back home. But I want to know why you wanted to meet me. Is it because I'm another master? I was hoping you weren't one, not someone so young."

    You didn't know if the servant was just under her employ or lived with her. But the girl was making no effort in concealing the command seals on the back of the hand that rested on the table. Confidence? Or a warning. You couldn't say, you also were fairly sure it didn't matter.

    Illya is staring at you, blinking slowly. An awkward few seconds pass before she lets out a sigh, her gaze falling to the table. "My father was Kiritsugu Emiya."


    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSydVlRWfhc

    You hear the words, but for a moment, you don't understand them. That's…

    No.

    Could you say you were surprised? Almost certainly yes, but was it something impossible? No. Kiritsugu never talked about his past, at all. He never talked about his family, never talked about his life before he met you. The only things you knew about Kiritsugu was that he was a magus and a hero. If he had another child… well, if he had a child. You weren't his flesh and blood despite how he treated you. You were surprised he never even mentioned Illya, if she was even telling the truth.

    "I wasn't aware he had any children." You say slowly.

    Illya blinks, looking very confused. "You are… Shirou Emiya?"

    You nod your head. "He adopted me. He found me in the Fuyuki fire and rescued me, but he never talked to me about his past." The most he had ever done was leave on trips a lot when you were far younger, before that was beyond his health and ability. But he never even mentioned…

    Anger flits across Illya's face, her hand twitching on the table. Before she lets out a slow breath. Reaching into a pocket of her jacket, she produces a small photograph and sets it out onto the table. On it was… her, in the center of the picture. Above her was another woman almost identical except for age and height, her chin resting on top of Illya's head as she wrapped her in a hug. While standing just beside them with a small smile on his face was Kiritsugu Emiya. You stare at it, at the man. His face was missing most of the lines you had known him to have, he seemed… happy.

    You lean over the picture, taking in the details. This was more than you had ever known about Kiritsugu, more than you had ever expected to know. You had a little sister? That was…

    Wonderful.

    You look up towards Illya, a small smile on your face. "Did you bring me here so that we could meet?"

    Illya smiles then shakes her head. "I originally brought you here to kill you. But my servant convinced me to talk with you first."

    … The ease at which she said that concerns you. But then again… she likely had a rather poor opinion of you if you didn't even know she existed. "Well. I'm happy you didn't." Then you reach out a hand and place it on top of her head, smiling all the while. "I'm happy to meet my little sister."

    Illya goes cross-eyed, staring up at the hand owlishly. Then she lets her eyes fluttered close, letting out a soft hum. The maid just to her side is now glaring at your hand, and perhaps you were taking this in a bit too quickly. A… lot had happened these past few days, perhaps that's why you were accepting this so easily. But another part of you was just simply happy to know more about Kiritsugu, and to have another member of your family. It was a lot to take in, and you were basically going on autopilot at the moment. But then, as you noted.

    Your life has been weird lately.

    "Are you… involved in this Grail War?" you ask.

    Illya's eyes open again, a faint pink coming to her cheeks as she moves her head away from your hand. "Yes, I have a wish of my own."

    You stare into each others eyes, saying nothing for several more awkward moments. You didn't expect this when you woke up today, how could you? While it seems this entire conversation wasn't going perhaps the way she expected.

    She looks away a few seconds later down at the table. "Would you like… some tea?"

    You smile and nod, moving to sit next to her. "Could you tell me about Kiritsugu? He never talked to me about his past."

    Illya frowns for a moment, then shakes her head. "He…" She can't seem to figure out what she wants to say.

    "Well, why don't you tell me about yourself?" you say, speaking up while she is struggling.

    Illya looks at you, then smiles.

    —

    It was an hour later when you felt the twinging in the back of your skull. You had gone through several cups of tea, and the awkwardness had long since been replaced by a happy smiling little girl that seemed wholly interested in every little tale you had to tell her, her chin held up by her hands as she smiled at you. You were in the midst of telling her a story of how Taiga had once accidentally set Kiritsugu on fire when the pain became too much of a distraction. It was… a tickle, and then a pinch. Something pulling and poking at the back of your brain and causing your hands to shoot towards it in discomfort as pain lanced through you.

    "-irou?!" a faint, familiar voice calls out in your mind, bouncing around like a violent intrusive thought.

    Illya lets out a sigh, pushing herself up from the table as you wince once more. "She's almost through the barriers, unfair. It would take a first-rate mage a month to even begin getting through the communication barrier." She then clasps her hands behind her back, smiling beatifically at you. "It's been a good morning, but now it's time to go."

    You open up your mouth to respond, but another, calm and familiar voice speaks up from just behind you.

    "Is it time?"

    You look back to see the servant from before standing just an inch behind your back, her gaze fixed on Illya.

    "Yes, we'll speak again, big brother." Illya says.

    Then you feel a hand press against the back of your skull, and you realize for the third time in as many days you were about to be knocked uncon-

    —

    You awaken to… birdsong. You open your eyes slowly, groaning. A grogginess fighting against you as you force your senses to come back. It felt like you had just slept for twenty hours, and knowing your days lately you quite possibly had. Your vision is a blur, a mess of white and gray for a second before things come into focus. You were… just outside of your home, past the backyard fence. You could see straight through it in places, holes in both it, the front fence, and the house for that matter showing clear in the daylight the damage from the battle of the night before. Blood caked the ground where the monster fell, as did bits of masonry.

    You were pressed against a tree, tucked tightly into a thick, woolen blanket. So tightly you had to almost fight to extricate yourself from it. It was as you were doing so that you heard a voice shout for your attention, and you looked back up to see-

    —

    [] [Caster?]

    [] [Taiga!?]

    [] [Ayako!?]
     
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