Sorting Memories

Question and Answers:

Before we start the Chapter, I thought I should answer the most popular questions.

1) Command Seals

Answer) I have answered each reviewer but let me answer it again for our readers.

I know how Command Seals works, they are only restrictions and boosts for the Servants and they don't determine which servant will be summoned.

But I have given Shirou's seals Sakura's design because it will be a necessary plot point in the upcoming chapters.

2) Why Kiara?

Answer) Well, the reason I chose Kiara is because her actual backstory is pretty sad and even in Grand Order, they just had to screw her over by overwriting her personality and memories. I want atleast one version of her to be happy and normal.

3) Avalon

Answer) I know many of you are upset about what happened with Avalon but worry not because it still has a role to play. I won't explain further because well... Spoilers.

So without waiting any further.. let's dive right into it.

Chapter 5: Sorting Memories

Shirou was seated in the Lotus position with his eyes closed.

'Clear Your Mind. Rid yourself of all thoughts. Make your mind blank and calm.'

Shirou repeated these words like a mantra as he tried to gain even a little of his former mastery with Occlumency.

Shirou had always thought that he would never be able to learn or master anything other than the 3 he already knew.

But the off hand comment of one of the mages of Clock Tower about how he was unworthy of the reality marble he possessed and would be better off as a research material reminded him of how great of tool the reality marble was, it was only thanks to this that he was able to counter the King of Heroes. From then on Shirou Emiya went the path opposite to that of normal mages.

While other mages wanted to evolve their magic to the level of true magic and reach the root. Shirou had no interest in the so called root, therefore to increase his versetality he started searching for magics derived from the reality marbles such as Flash Air aka Displacement which was usable but a little difficult due to it it being mostly focused on Alchemical Principals then there's Occlumency which was basically a watered down version of the Marble. But it did it's work well enough that the mages created a whole art with it. Just because something was derived from something, it doesn't lower it's value.

And trying the derivative and beginner magecraft worked, even Rin and Luvia were impressed, according to her, if before his potential as a mage was 10 then it just skyrocketted to somewhere between 25-30. And when they asked how he came up with idea, so Shirou was forced to recount what that mage said and then Shirou's entire thought process.

Well, probably Shirou should have kept quiet because that mage had to face the wrath of both Rin and Luvia.

Just remembering it made Shirou shudder.

'No... Clear your mind... Remove useless thoughts...you are blank...'

Occlumency might be great against mental attacks but that's not what Shirou needed right now, he wanted the ability to sort through the memories as he could feel that those memories were fading as if a dream. Only memories not Knowledge, how ? he didn't know but he knew one thing i.e the memories may contain clue as to what happened. And he was in a hurry which inturn messed up with Occlumency training a little.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity Shirou felt his mind finally connecting with his Reality Marble.

Why waste time building a Mind Palace when you have a Reality Marble? The superior object.

However the scenery of the Reality Marble left his mouth gaping in shock.

Einzbern Castle,

On the outskirts of the Fuyuki City is a huge forest and in the middle of that forest is a Castle hidden from the prying eyes of humans.

The castle is a property belonging to the Einzberns, one of the 3 creators of the holy grail war.

That was also one of the only reason for their survival in the Moonlit World despite their decline.

Einzberns were surely one of the stronger mage families but with the amount of knowledge they possessed about alchemy or even themselves as materials for magecraft, it wouldn't be shocking at all to see them being attacked by multiple families banding together or even the association itself.

However their control over 3rd True Magic, managed to keep the Greedy ones in check.

By providing the lesser holy grail for each war they gained the temporary protection of the association till a final winner for the war was finally decided after so many battles.

However, one must not discount the castle itself, it was brought to Fuyuki during the 4th Holy Grail War from the Einzbern's home land to serve as a base for the mages of Einzbern family participating in the HGW.

It was equipped with all sorts of defensive and offensive spells capable of withstanding many thing and dish out plenty of damage.

Even hundreds of mages are not enough to fell this single castle.

Right now, in the main hall of the Castle there was flash of light as a white magic circle materialized on the ground and 4 people walked out of the the Magic Circle.

Two of them were maids in matching attire, one was a cute little girl, and finally a Giant the size of a small Mountain.

However, looking at the way they were standing it seemed like the little girl was the one in charge.

"Wah..we're finally here~ Now I can finally meet onii-chan and then I CAN FINALLY TEACH HIM THE DESPAIR PAPA MADE ME FEEL- *Cough* *Cough* *Cough*"

Who would have thought that this little girl was hiding so much malice inside her but her villainous rambling was interrupted by her incessant coughing.

"Aaah.. Why's there so much dust here?!" Illya yelled at no one in particular

"It seems the cleaning spells have worn out, ojou-sama" One of the maids replied.

"I want it cleaned now!! I am going to pay onii-chan a visit and by the time I come back, I want it to be clear as a Mirror. Come Berserker!"

With that the giant and the little girl disappeared before Stella could stop her from going on her own. Even though she had Berserker one of the strongest Heroes from myth, his rage induced mindlessness only worried Stella further.

"We have to clean." Leysritt kindly pointed out to Stella.

*Sigh*

In the Reality Marble,

Shirou could not even believe his eyes as he gazed at his supposed Reality Marble.

It was just too... different. Good king of different but different.

How would one describe something they found so beautiful and grand that no words came to their minds?

How would you describe something that looked exactly like what you imagined a paradise would be like?

That's how Shirou felt at the moment.

His Reality Marble, called "Unlimited Blade Works," which was a manifestation of his powerful and unwavering ideal: to become a hero of justice.

This ideal usually took the form of an endless hill of swords. Barren and with the glow of the sunset.

But this, this was way too different, although at the base it was still a hill serving as a grave of swords. It was no longer barren.

Everywhere he looked Shirou found flowers the entire reality marble looked like a beautiful garden instead even with all those swords sticking out.

Shirou looked around trying to search for the reason but the only conclusion he came to was that it was all because of the memories.

Instead of finding answers he only found more questions.

'Hmm...what's that sword?.....wait, what?!'

Shirou immediately grew tense, this was his Reality Marble, his mind, he should know everything here.

The moment he touched the swords all its came rushing to him on its own without even using structural analysis as if it was waiting for him.

Just to be sure Shirou touched a few more and the same thing happened again and again.

It was as if all the information regarding these thousands upon thousands of swords were sealed unless he accessed them personally.

Why? Just as Shirou was wondering why and who? He suddenly remembered how he regained the memories of the loops, it was all just shoved into his brain causing so much migraine.

What if he was shoved all the knowledge of these swords as well? Shirou doubted he could survive.

It was as if someone or something had filtered what would harm him and what would not.

Shirou sat down on the ground and created three ethereal swords.

And willed his memories to flow into the three swords. Each sword representing each loop.

That was it. What else did you expect? That's magic for you. Not to mention the fact that he is inside his reality marble where he's the god.

Slowly three tendrils of energies escaped his brain into the swords. Each a different colour. One was Red, one was Blue and the last one was Purple.

As the memories were slowly sorted out and placed in each sword their forms began to twist to change. The red one's form was somewhat similar to that Caliburn while the Blue one looked a lot like Excalibur as for the purple one it also looked similar to Excalibur but the colour reminded one of Excalibur: Morgan instead.

With his memories finally being sorted out, Shirou let out a sigh of relief as if a lot of weight had been removed from his shoulders.

Now his mind felt clearer than ever and he realised even this Occlumency idea was also planted in his mind. He doubted he could have recalled about the Occlumency so fast if he was thinking normally.

But who was this being manipulating his actions and why? Also, doesn't using Occlumency increase his mental defence instead? What even was the being's end plan?

'Ughh...I will solve the problems on the first comes first basis.'

First of all he needed to to deal with his memories.

Occlumency will take care of sorting it and then he just needed to reabsorb them.

Grasping the hilt of the red blade Shirou looked into his memories and saw as his life flashed by him arriving at HGW and Shirou couldn't help but feel his heart tighten when he saw Gilgamesh kill his sister as he could do nothing but watch but this time Shirou would be sure to pay that bastard back everything with interest. Even his fight with Archer was less painful than this. But no matter how much he searched his memories of this timeloop he couldn't find something worthy of triggering the loop other than breaking the grail but if that was reason then it should have happened instantly not so late.

Grabbing the hilt of the Blue blade, Shirou was still dissatisfied as even this loop didn't seem to contain any clue. Although he was glad that Illya survived this time.It meant nothing since it was just a loop. But there was one thing which did surprise Shirou, Archer's little hint was the sole reason he could even learn Projection and later Tracing in this world unlike the last loop where it was all instinct through the resonance, this time he learned them on his own. Even if one considered that Archer's pity or something, it didn't hide the fact that Archer was acting weird.

If Shirou didn't compare the actions of Archer in two loops, Shirou doubted anyone could see through his perfect acting,even Shirou was only able to see the discrepancy due to the fact Archer was his another self.

Slowly a theory was beginning to form in Shirou's mind. But he needed to confirm it first.

Grabbing the Purple Blade, Shirou dived right into it, this loop was way way different than the previous ones. For one, he learned a lot more about Holy Grail than the previous loops. Secondly, Why did Sakura go berserk only in this loop? As much as he loathed to say it. Sakura suffered just as much in the previous loops. Could that be a clue? Maybe. Another point to note was that Archer was acting weird in this loop as well. Even going as far as to give him his left arm.

Illya died in this loop as well, but somehow she was able to use 3rd Magic to create a temporary vessel for him using her own body. Illya...Thank you.

As for Shirou, he was by far at his weakest in this loop, only surviving thanks to Archer's Arm. Even after gaining the puppet body, Shirou wasted most of his time learning how to properly control it. The only positive was that this caused his mana control to reach it's peak.

Going over his memories once again, Shirou finally had a working theory of how he remembered the past loops. It either had to do with Archer's Arm as he suspected that Archer atleast knew that something was wrong or probably even had all his memories, especially considering that he was a Counter Guardian. Or it could be because of Illya using 3rd Magic on him, the reason he thought so was because the magic had strengthened his soul..by a lot.

But this theory only worked if that world was indeed the last loop before this one but for some reason Shirou's knew that it was so.

Now, that one mystery was solved, Shirou turned focus to this loop's memories. Due to the chaotic memories he wasn't able to focus on them at all as they were hidden behind three different layers.

Shirou closed his eyes and started recalling from when he had fallen asleep yesterday.

"Hmm~ Onii-chan wasn't at his school." Illya hummed as she walked on the streets next to Berserker in his spirit form. "What do you think we should do now? Shall we go and pay him a visit?"

Illya asked Berserker but she might as well have been talking to air as Berserker was barely sentient enough to follow orders but not enough to talk.

"Maybe I should? Let's go check where papa used to live." Illya decided

Sakura was very nervous right now. She had to go talk to her sister after all. Sakura didn't know why but Sempai had asked her a favour to bring Rin to Emiya House. This caused all sorts of questions to pop in Sakura's head as she even wondered whether Sempai was tired of her already? But she quickly dispelled those thoughts.

It was about time for school to end. So should she go to the school? No, if any teacher or brother saw her it will be very bad. So, she should just go and wait outside Tohsaka Mansion for the only Tohsaka child to return.

In an abandoned shack in the mountains, a pink haired lady in a suit opened her eyes.

"Ah... I see you are awake already. I am really lucky that I found a prodigy like you. Hehehe"

"Who are you? What do you want?" The pink haired girl said strongly.

"Oh my~I forgot to introduce myself, You can call me Caster, O' defeated Master."

Hearing the terms used by Caster, Bazett's expression hardened.

"Now I believe I have a proposal for you~ What say you? Fufufu"

"You don't need to panic Grey" Waver sated to calm Grey's heart which had been in turmoil since finding out that she had been chosen for the grail war, instead of Waver.

"Right now you can easily give up, your right participate in the Grail War. You don't need to force yourself to participate."

"N-no, Master wanted to participate in this war and I can't just give up. Even...even if I have to use..her...as my servant. You have done too much for me.. it's my time to repay you."

"You don't have to... either I mean. You have already paid me back enough. If you want to participate in the Grail War, you should do it for your own wishes and desires. But you should think carefully as due to the rules, I won't be able to help you much in the war. Also, you don't have necessary have to summon her... I have an artifact..."

"Hehehe... Little girls, should not wander in the deserted areas.. Let this Uncle teach you what happens to bad girls like you.....hehehehe"

A middle-aged, gangster looking man chuckled looking at Kiara and licked his lips deviously.

Kiara was terrified looking at the man, when she didn't feel his emotions she thought he was like other average people, neither good nor bad.

But who would have thought this man had some sort of Mystic Code protecting him.

Due to that Kiara had mistakenly asked this..this.. villain for help and was led here.

'Why? Why must all the bad things happen to me only? Did I commit some great crime in my past life? Why?!?!' Kiara raged inside as tears fell from her eyes.

"Hahaha Cry... Cry as much as you want. Even your crying face is cu-------"

*Puchik*

There was sound of something falling as the man's words stopped mid sentence.

Terrified and Curious, Kiara opened her eyes to meet one of the most beautiful people she had ever seen before. The Beautiful Lady Knight bowed and spoke to her.

"I ask of thee.. Are you my Master?"

To be continued.....

Also, if you have any questions just ask, I will answer them in the next chapter.