> restart: iteration 12, day 1, early night
Oh, that is it.
I march downstairs and out the door. I go around to the back alley and down the block. Sure enough, there's Rin and the red guy, fighting the blonde swordwoman. Shirou stands in the alley, yelling at them to stop.
I walk out from behind the corner. "Hey!"
They all turn towards me.
I throw out my arms. "What the hell is --"
"I've got it." Rin points at me. "Etwas. Rückwärts --"
***
> restart: iteration 13, day 1, early night
I wait fifteen minutes, then I go and bang on Emiya's front door.
He answers. "Uh, yeah?"
"Hi," I say curtly. "Emiya. I live down the street."
"Oh, right. Tomo... nagi?"
"Tomonaga. Okay. I'm just going to come out and say it. What the fuck is going on?!"
He blinks. "What do you..."
"I know I've got no way to prove this, but I've been stuck in this time loop for days now."
"A what?"
"Time loop. Like, I've been repeating the same three days over and over again. Like Groundhog's Day. Have you ever seen Groundhog's Day?"
"Um, no. Sorry."
"You should. Bill Murray. Very funny. Anyway -- it's been like this for me for over three weeks now. And it all starts with whatever just happened in your backyard."
"Oh," he says.
"So I need to know exactly what the hell just happened. Who that blonde with the sword is. How she can leap freaking buildings. What Tohsaka is doing here. And --"
I look up to see something hurdling towards me.
***
> restart: iteration 14, day 1, early night
"-- and NO! No!" I point up at the guy in the red jacket standing on Shirou's roof. "I see you! Fuck you! That hurts!" He pauses, a throwing knife in his hands. I turn back to Emiya. "And why is there a guy with knives on your roof?! And why does Rin keep killing me with German! Also, y'know... how."
He looks at me, then slowly slides open the door. "... you... want to come in?"
***
> skip forward
I take in a deep breath and let it out. "Magic."
"Yep," Rin says.
I'm sitting at Shirou's kitchen table next to him and the blonde swordwoman, with Rin on the other side of us. Somewhere, I can hear a faucet dripping. "As in," I say, "actual, real, Harry Potter, I-cast-a-spell-at-the-darkness magic. Which is a thing."
"Yeah," Shirou says quietly.
"Something like that, yes." Rin grits her teeth. I think I hit a nerve. She's... very different in person than I would have imagined. She looks at Shirou. "You do realize that, under mage law, we should be getting rid of him, right?"
He shrugs. "Yeah, but..."
"You've tried," I say flatly. "A lot. You ever seen Groundhog's Day? All killing me does is reset --"
YOU ARE READING
fate/first order derivative
FanfictionAn eccentric nerd finds himself stuck in a time loop after something weird happens down the street at Shirou Emiya's place. Tom Tomonaga doesn't know why he's repeating the same two weeks over and over again. He doesn't know anything about magic, th...
