Chapter 1: The wheel turns

A white mass suddenly intruded a vast space filled with swirling colours and ever-changing shapes without any sense of direction and beyond understanding. As soon as it appeared the margarine-inducing ever-present coloured light began to envelop it as if trying to assimilate it. 

This made the mass leave a comet-like train on the backdrop of chaotic colours as it started to move in the swirl until it suddenly vanished as if it never existed and the space went back as it was from the origin of all and will remain till the end of all. 

In a part of a city or what used to be a part of a city an inferno was raging, this place was akin to a hellscape. It was covered in eerie reddish-coloured flame and released columns of smoke and ash into the air. The fire`s reddish colour looked to be soaked in the blood and anguish of its victim and the red light leaking from the sky covered in smoke made the situation look terrifying. 

At the deepest part of this hell on earth existed a black hole in the sky, outlined by a reddish glow; it continued to pour a blackish mud that seemed to cause this hellscape. Within this ruined land a black-haired man was wearing a black suit and carrying guns and was crying and screaming around like a lunatic in a panic attack. 

He was picking up corpses and hugging them and crying as if it would bring them back. Slowly his eyes seem to lose the light and his face the emotions. Then he started mechanically moving Rubles and cleared the area in search as if searching for a survivor.

In the direction the lunatic was moving a red-haired boy wearing a hoodie and a body stained with the shoot was moving. He was moving forward with unfocused eyes and a blank stare, surrounded by distant screams for help and cries filled with pain. 

People were buried in the flaming rubble but the boy continued staggered movements until a building suddenly collapsed and he was buried in flaming concrete and wood. Getting buried seemed to suffocate him and slowly he fell unconscious. 

Suddenly a white light flashed and something leaving behind a rainbow tail for a few seconds disappeared into the fainted boy. In a vast darkness, a floating pure white mass covered in faint greenish-blue circuit marks was scorched in some parts and faint cinders still existed on it.

 This mass was impacted by a similar but fractured object which was releasing a multi-coloured glow. The darkness started shaking and the floating objects seemed to meld until the space was filled with chaotic coloured and reddish yellow flashes until suddenly a golden light covered everything.

The man with a face covered in tear stains and a dull face started mechanically removing the rubble and pieces of the building but suddenly he stopped and tears began to overflow from his eyes. His blurry eyes reflected the visage of a looking at him with half-conscious and heavy eyes, the boy extended a hand to him as if to grab him and verify if he was real or not. 

The man grasped the hand not unlike how a drowning person grasps a lifeline and the light slowly returned to his eyes as he showed a tear-stained but dazzling smile muttering "Thank You!".

When the boy slowly closed his eyes in a daze as the last embers of life were slowly leaving him, the man started scrambling around until he suddenly tapped his torso and a golden ball of light was pulled along with his hands.

 The glow slowly faded and revealed a golden scabbard with blue lines running in a Mobius strip shape over it, then the man slowly pushed the scabbard the boy and decapitated into a golden flicker as if it never existed and was just a mirage.

A man with short black hair and a silver cross across his neck was watching this place. He wiped the blood flowing from the injury on his forehead turned away and muttered "I shall face you once more" and then went in the opposite direction and saved some children from the rubble.

 Anybody looking at this will have a feeling of a priest doing god`s will. As if by fate this man neither saw the rainbow light nor was patient enough to see the other man bring out the golden glow.

Both men went their way carrying a child and multiple children respectively. The man who was weeping was now smiling as he looked at the unconscious red-headed boy who was regaining some colour and went on in the direction of the unburnt city. 

By the time he reached the road, the fires had extinguished and the burnt landscape was illuminated by the morning sun. this leads to a picturesque image with the backdrop of the morning sun and the contrast between the ruined area and an intact city.

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Fuyuki General Hospital, Fuyuki City, Japan

Inside an ICU unit, a red-headed boy was sleeping on the bed and a nurse was checking the readings on the machines and the reports of tests on the boy. The boy slowly opened his eyes but closed them immediately stung by the noon light coming into the room from the glass window. 

Then squinting his eyes as they adapted to the change in brightness of the area he looked around and took in the scenery of the hospital room illuminated by the noon light giving the white curtains and machines a yellowish tint. His eyes stayed on the nurse scribbling something on a clipboard and he spoke 

"Miss! Where am I?"

The nurse turned around and looked at him then at the data on her board and then asked

"Does it hurt anywhere? do you remember what happened before you fainted?"

The boy started moving his arms and legs but it resulted in getting the saline drip and monitor wires connected to him getting pulled. After the nurse removed all the wires and pipes, he replied

"Fire a lot of fire there was fire everywhere and breaking buildings and shouts…. I also remember a man taking my arm and crying" 

Seeing the strained way of speaking and his expression the nurse asked for his name but the boy replied 

"I am…i…I can't remember!!!"

Seeing a child freaking out and the blank look in his eyes the nurse consoled him saying that he was in the hospital and it was all fine and she is calling the doctor and everything will be fine. After the nurse left the boy stared blankly at the room and the scene of the man holding his arm crying and saying " thank you" kept repeating in his mind.

 The relieved smile on the man's face as he saved him made him feel a twinge of jealousy, he too wanted to show such a smile and feel relieved like that. Then the door opened and a middle-aged man with a kind smile and thick glasses walked and asked him with a smile and gave him a candy.

"I will ask you some questions and after you answer you can go back to your father waiting outside"

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Outside the man who saved the child talked to the doctor and learnt about his amnesia of the child and his condition, he left the hospital after the doctor told him the child could be discharged after some last checks and a few hours of observation. 

When he returned after some time, he had a document containing the fact that the child was the sole survivor of the fire and hence becoming an orphan. After convincing the doctor that he would act as a guardian and requesting the hospital to contact the orphanage which would adopt the boy, he went inside the room to meet the boy.

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As the door opened the boy sitting on the bed turned his head and his blank light brown eyes came across the similar-looking black eyes. The man who saved him stood there after closing the door and a silence persisted in which they looked at each other. The man tried to smile and he asked 

"I am Emiya Kiritsugu, do you remember me"

The boy remembering the man spoke "You were the one who saved me from fire and was crying "

kiritsugu stood still after hearing this, contemplating what to do with the boy and then suddenly there was a gleam of determination in his eyes and he opened his mouth

"Will you come with me and live with me"

The boy, confused by this thought what this meant till he remembered the fire and asked "Where are the others caught in the fire?"

After learning that he is the only one surviving, he remembers the smile of relief shown by kiritsugu when saving him he says "Okay I will come with you"

"I heard that you don't remember your name how about I call you Shirou"

The boy now called Shirou just smiled and extended his hand towards kiritsugu who caught it. Now father and son the two men went out of the room.