Time Loops and Shirou

Fuyuki City, 2004.

Day 1 HGW

Shirou Emiya.

He was a rather simple minded boy with the dream to become a Hero of Justice and save Everyone.

But he had a flaw, a big one, he was far too kind.

Which people happily exploited.He knew that too but was happy to be able to help someone nonetheless.

But Why? Because he was tied down by the survivor's guilt,his kindness and his promise to Kiritsugu Emiya,his adopted father and saviour.

That was also the reason that Shirou's dream were usually the fire and heat or being saved by Kerry or Dreamless nights.

But today was different, Just as the clock hit 12:01 AM, an intense amount of pain penetrated his body, light up his body in green circuit patterns as his back arched from the pain unable to make a single sound.

His head thundered as if his very soul was being torn apart, a pain even worse than the day he lost everything.

Then as if a Dam had broken Memories flooded his head,further increasing the growing migrane as his past flashed before his eyes. Some of which he had thought lost, a happy couple holding his hand and a girl with same age and face as him except she had black hair.

'Am I dead? Or Am I dying?It's rather painful' Shirou thought in a moment of clarity as his pain eased a little and the memories reached present day.

Then continued much to his shock as he witnessed his death, revival, saber,rin, archer, illya,Sakura, Holy Grail War and more and this time he felt the emotions of the other him through this 'dream'. It was a rather agonizing and sad experience for Shirou, just a spectator, unable to do anything. This feeling of useless was even more difficult than even the pain. And then the memory ended abruptly on Day1,2005. Exactly one year from now.

Shirou weakly opened his eyes drenched in sweat and magic circuits opened and blazing across his body.

"It was not a dream then..." Shirou muttered weakly, trying to under the significance of what had happened.

Even though this was the world of magecraft and mysteries, what happened to him was nothing short of time travel. Kind of.

Just a few minutes ago he was less than even a third rate magus but now he had his circuits open and around a year worth of clock tower knowledge. A stable foundation for magecraft.

When Shirou was about to stand up another memory assaulted him as if mocking him. The pain even worse than before.This time Shirou's confusion skyrocketed as he stared at the alternate memories, these ones still follwed the previous set of memories till Day 1 but from then on it was a different future, a different sadness,a different path and a different love. This also followed till the one year anniversary but this time he chose different subjects to study. Unintentionally providing Shirou with more information.

When the pain ended Shirou opened his eyes and waited with a dry mouth for the last bout of memories.

' Wait... How do I know there's another set of memories waiting for me? And how do I know it's last?!.... Ugh'

Shirou was forced to stop his thinking as he was welcomed by a normal headache. But even this was comparable to the soul wrenching ones due to how spent he was mentally and physically.

'Illya...Sakura...Saber..' Shirou muttered as he waited and waited and waited and just when he had relaxed a little the fate decided to backstab him with more memories and extreme pain.

That was the last thing Shirou Emiya remembered before he passed out.

Unbeknownst to him, the pain was truly soul breaking as four reality marbles of simmilar size and colour clashed inside his body trying to rewrite his very soul. Into one of the Shirous from the memory attacks or Protect his soul from being re written for the last orb.

The Orbs just kept clashing into each other for dominance as his temperature soared. Finally after what was a few seconds or an eternity cracks started appearing on the Orbs one by one as they broke down in fragments, if left unchecked Shirou's soul would be lost rendering him brain dead forever.

But it was not to be as a seath in his soul, tried to heal him as much as it could with its remaining strength and even it's very existence. Because this boy was the one who made its original owner so happy, so full of life. And with a golden flash the seath was gone, no longer in the young man's body or even the world.

It had fulfilled it's purpose till the very end and it had succeeded. But for now, Shirou Emiya would remain ignorant of it's sacrifice.

With the Avalon's help, the four reality marbles's fragments fused with each other and created a larger marble ,which then started to get compressed and only stopped after it had reached normal size.

It looked just like before but now, it was.....more complete. Shirou Emiya's soul had become more complete, ideals,memories and knowledge of the three timeloops trying to fill the gap in his soul.

And it worked.For the first time in many years,Shirou Emiya was complete. But complete didn't mean he was safe.

Avalon may have protected his soul from shattering but it was also protecting his soul from somthing foreign, a piece of black mud which had touched the young boy, a decade ago. Trying to be reborn through him.

As the mud sensed it's disappearance, it tried to once more attempt to be reborn. But the reality marble won't let it, after all it was the host's conciousness, unconsciousness and subconsciousness given form.

And right now, Shirou Emiya's instinct wanted to destroy and expel this filthy mud from within him.

The reality marble responded to the host's instincts and started releasing a golden light which looked suspiciously like the Excalibur's Noble Phantasm attack.

It worked like wonder easily erasing the filth but mud was tenacious as well. If it couldn't take over the boy then it would show him the truth instead.

The truth of how evil humans truly are, maybe that's when the boy would realise that all the humans needed to die and pay for their sins.

And to do so it sent the boy the memories of its core and even considering how fragmented and little the memories were they would get the point across.

And with that the last piece of the mud was destroyed.At least the piece inside Shirou Emiya.

But it's real self would wait for the boy to realise the folly in his ways and come to it.

...........

There is nothing but despair in this world.

It is a hell of a world where constant malice and everything that accelerates destruction are boiling at the root of the world like a poison.

A world where innocents like Sakura Matou have to constantly suffer for no crime.

A world where Humans kill humans, Mages kill Humans, Monsters kill humans, even gods like Alaya and Gaia kill humans.

Is there any reason to protect such humans?

This was the thought with which Shirou Emiya woke up. His mind a buzz as the memories from other loops turned hazy and disappeared into the subconsciousness.

He looked up to see Sakura sitting near him asleep. And an Ice Pack on his head. And instantly the answer became clear to him.

Humans are sinful creatures made up of base desires. That's why one should always cherish the ones who are able to overcome their base desires and show kindness to others.

With that Shirou had decided a path, a path which may be common for other- normal people but for people like Shirou Emiya, especially Shirou Emiya, it was a new path. A path he hadn't ever had time to consider.

He wouldn't become a Hero of Justice For Everyone like he and his other selves had always dreamt.

Nor Would he become the Hero of Wrought Iron like Archer and kill one to save ten kind of person.

Neither would he become like Angra Manyu wishing the destruction of humanity.

Neither would he just up and abandon them.

No,He had long realised the error of his ways from Archer's,Saber's and Angra Mainyu's and His timeloop counterparts's memories. He couldn't save everyone and his ideals themselves were flawed.

But this was a world/time where corruption and evil ruled and with such people as the core, people's suffering would only grow.

So, the only way forward was by becoming a Hero for his family and friends and Vengeance for the innocent. He would not justify his killing as if it would save others, that it was the best choice.

No, He would only hunt those that have become monsters.Nor would he ever kill innocents, even for the greater good. He would never seek to help people forcefully. And would only help those he can.

This was his new way of life.

Let's see if he is able to stay true to it.

.........................

Looking at the sleeping face of Sakura, Shirou quick dispelled all those thoughts.

Poor Sakura. She had suffered unjustly for so long.Just thinking about what he had learned about her made Shirou's blood boil.If there was someone whom Shirou had to murder in cold blood, Zouken Makiri would be at the top of the list. With second place belonging to whoever/whatever made this time loop, forcing Sakura to go through this again and again.

'Deep breaths...Deep Breaths' Shirou mumbled to himself as he tried to calm himself.

Shirou did one thing that would bring him comfort and that was, patting Sakura's pretty head and caressing her beautiful hair.

It was a slow start but he felt calmness come to him as he patted her head.It was strange how much comfort one person could bring to another.

It was even stranger that he never noticed her feelings or realised his own. That brought up a rather uncomfortable topic, his feelings for Rin Tohsaka and Saber/Arturia.

Although he had never met them in this life, he had the time loops memories and each time loop he had feelings for both of them as well as Sakura. Was he really such a pervert that couldn't even love properly.

.......

He was brought out of his musings when he felt the weight in his arm shift, looking down he saw Sakura awake looking at him with trembling eyes.

"Good Morning Sakura" Shirou said with the best smile he could muster on his embarrassed face.

"G.good morning Sempai" Sakura managed to say "Are you okay now? When I came in the morning the door was locked and you were not in the shed, so I checked and you.. you were burning with fever and sweating a lot. So I...I..I am so sorry for coming in uninvited."

Sakura hurriedly tried to explain as if she had done something wrong.

"Sakura."Shirou said in firm tone causing the girl to flinch a bit but he continued "Never say or think like that. I gave you the spare key for a reason. I trust you. You are my friend. You are family. And promise me that you will never belittle yourself like that."

Shirou looked at her expectantly and realised that something was wrong. For one, Sakura was fidgeting in her seat with her face flushed red and steam rising from her head and ears.

As if feeling his gaze, she lowered her head ever further and then removed his arm( which was still petting her),stood up and left (ran) as if a devil was on her tail. All in a matter of seconds, leaving Shirou bamboozled.

Shirou blinked his eyes and looked at his arm as he tried to process what just happened.Then realisation hit him. Fuck.I was too intimate with Sakura. What if she hates me and thinks I am some kind of creep. I hope not.

As Shirou tried to stand, he staggers unable to control his own body properly. His body felt strange.It felt same as one sleeps wrong on their arms but worse. As if the body wasn't his own.

Shaking his head Shirou looks at time. It's 9:17 Am.

'Hmm...It's a little late but I will be able to attend the second half of the classes. And the Archery club.'

Thinking of Archery club Shirou was reminded of that bastard Shinji. He couldn't believe that he was friends with that piece of shit who did such atrocities.... Sakura.

Sakura!!!

'Fuck. She still has that worm in her.I need to do something and soon. But what? Rule Breaker? Possible but too dangerous. Flash Air? I still haven't mastered it. No wait.. don't panic.. first we need to assess her situation. Thankfully my Structural grasping is invisible to other mages.'

................

With that in mind Shirou quickly freshened up and thought about all the reasearch HF Shirou had done to make sure it never happened to Sakura again and to cure someone else in simmilar circumstances. But something in him was telling him that most of those won't work . And he decided to trust those feelings, especially since they had saved his life many many times.

Thinking of those loops Shirou frowned because he was accepting them too easily, he didn't even know if they were mere dreams or what and even if they were true, they had too many holes. It was like having three jigsaw puzzles and instead of being solved, someone decided to put all the pieces of all three puzzles in the same pile.

Meaning although he had all the knowledge, he didn't know how they connected to one another.

*Splash*

Shirou splashed some water on his face to clear his mind. Every time he began thinking about those things, it seemed as if..as if.. something!

'Food first, rest later' he decided.

.................

"Good morning Sakura" Shirou once again greeted her on habbit.

"Good morning Sempai!" Sakura greeted with a little more force than normal with her head still lowered.

"Ah.. about earlier..-"

"It all right Sempai! Hurry up and eat breakfast. Food is Important Sempai!!"

"Huh" was all Shirou said as he scratched his head and went wild on food with 'Itadakimasu'.

Looking at the amount of food he ate, he was Saber level of hungry.

"With that out of way" Shirou began " Sakura. Do you trust me?"

Sakura lowered her head at her name being mentioned but the speed at which it snapped back up made one wonder if she really had any bones in her neck.

The look Sakura gave him was par offended? as if he had questioned her very faith and part confused as if what bought this on. But she nodded nonetheless.

Seeing this Shirou sighed in relief and walked up to her.

"Then thank you Sakura and sorry this may hurt a bit"

Sakura had just opened her mouth to say something but then her vision went black and she fainted with Shirou's hand on the back of her neck.

Looking at her fainted form, Shirou felt a little bit guilty but hardened his heart and took her to a spare room. This had to be done.

Laying her down gently, Shirou drew the necessary magic circle with runes to be as precise as possible.

Then he used Structural grasping on the girl's sleeping form. His use of this magecraft was also just as mutated as his projection magecraft, since this magecraft of his was impossible for any mage to detect unless they knew what they were looking for.

The result was this: 5 crest worms, one near heart, 2 near lungs and 2 in each kidney. Forming a pentagram like magic circle, using the life force and magic of Sakura.

Shirou frowned as he tried to keep his anger under control and projected the 3 weapons needed for this task.

.................

f056a7ee1e4badfea40e671833332436 I'm serializing this work on Webnovel. Head over to Webnovel for the other chapter updates! https://www.webnovel.com