Fate/stay night: holLow wORlD

Chapter 9: Spring Song II

Emiya sighs to himself as he watched Rin and Ayako work on magic together in what could be called the living room of the Tohsaka Residence.

Ayako was still quite new to magic, and this meant she had zero survivability within the war. Any magus with high inexperience, dont won't survive long in a grail war, they made too easy targets. And this meant Rin was already going to protect her. Emiya knew this for a fact.

The two girls continued to work through various basic techniques and such. Archer's gaze leaving the two and turning to Caster.

Caster was looking around the home, she did not seem to be paying much attention to anything at all, quite aloof almost.

Caster was particularly interested in the home's architecture and design. It was very different than the Einzbern Castle. Miss Tohsaka's home was surprisingly well kept despite it just being her and Archer.

Irisviel soon saw a family photo of the Tohsakas sitting on a desk. Her hands picking up the photo as she stared at the family.

Caster recognized the face of the man in the photo, she had seen Kiritsugu's photos from time to time of his targets. She knew this was Kiritsugu's war, this was Archer's Master. Irisviel has been summoned quite close as a further inspection upon the two girls in the photo, one was definitely Rin. Rin was around the age of 6 to 8 by the photo when that War occured. Through some further thought, Irisviel determined based on the current being 2004, then Illya should be at least 18.

Irisviel hopped Kiritsugu was doing well with Illya. Maybe she could convince Ayako to go searching for them somehow without her Masrer outright. Her thoughts were slowly dwindled out as a little flash of light caught her attention.

Ayako was learning to conjure up her spells better, and learning words that acted as catalysts. The flash of light was just her Master testing out a few new basic spells.

A girl so young, how she managed to summon a servant, made Caster stumped. Even with being merged with the Grail, all the power and knowledge could not help her correctly determine what was happening in this war.

A holy grail war usually consisted of 7
Masters, and 7 servants, but, it was turning into a Greater War with new summoning maybe a Grand if it continued at the current pace.

Irisviel's attention was then brought over to Archer who just sat down in a chair on the other side of the room. His leg propped up on his knee and his eyes closed. Just from watching for a moment, Irisviel knew he wasn't half asleep as he tried to act. It reminded Irisviel a lot of Kiritsugu, maybe that's why she got that strange feeling from him earlier. He had some attributes and characteristics that were similar to her husband, but she knew she would see him soon sometime.

Irisviel set the picture frame down. She had a lot of questions to be answered about the last war. What had exactly happened? Even with being bonded with the Grail, things were less than clear than they should be.

~~~

Emiya watched a little of Ayako's practice but the novelty wore off. The more he watched, the more he knew this war was going to be rough. He rubbed his head as he went away into spirit form to somewhere else in the Tohsaka residence. He'd keep an eye out for any unwanted visitors.

Already having Ayako suddenly appear with a servant was enough work for one day as is. Rin had enough on her plate anyway with Shirou, and now Ayako filled it.

Archer watched a few birds peck at the ground for worms, then a few squirrels, besides that, there was not much going on at all.

It gave Emiya enough time to recollect and ponder. The World made him a Counter-Guardian, if he was summoned here, perhaps it was too maintain balance in this ever changing Grail War. There was a great many deal of new servants being summoned, and it may not even stop, that was the difficult part.

Emiya sighed heavily, if Kiritsugu was here to see him, he'd be disappointed. Emiya was far down a path of reckoning. What would the old man say to him?

Kiritsugu spoke of being a "Hero of Justice. Yet, Emiya was far from it, he used to hold up to those ideals, but at every moment, the World just seem to punish him. He'd try to save everyone, but he ended up hurting more than anything. After years and years of trying, the killing got easier for Emiya. One death to save two, it became an afterthought.

All the blood, anguish, hate and fear he caused. Emiya slowly spaced it out, if he could kill 100 to save a 10000, he would do it over and over again.

The "Hero of Justice" Kiritsugu always spoke of, that path was impossible too achieve in the real world and Emiya's stubborn, young self was just too blind too see it.

(F/n) laughed at Emiya back then when he told him about being a "Hero of Justice". (F/n) may have knew it was never going to work, but, he did not tell Emiya to stop his pursuit of the ideal. (F/n)'s final moments still weighed on Emiya's mind, it was a few years before the grail war when he passed away to a horrible illness. This reality was different however. But (F/n) was wrong even in death. The "Hero of Justice" is just a fantasy not fit for reality.

The ideals of being hero were long gone. Vasts amounts of blood lie on Archer's hands now, and for him to be back here where it all started, had to be a sick joke by the World like recompense for all the misery he caused.

Being summoned by Rin, seeing his younger self, Artoria ... all of it. Strangest part was seeing (F/n) alive this far, Emiya wondered if he still catch ill as he once did. But for now, Emiya needed to figure out why the damn Caster felt so familiar.