After what felt like an eternity, Shirou finally returned to himself. His mind was still hazy, wandering between fragments of thought, but the strange wooden ceiling above brought him back to reality.
He had thought he had already seen enough weirdness to last a lifetime. The Holy Grail War had forced him to fight against ghosts of the past—heroes, assassins, kings. He had witnessed miracles and monstrosities, stared down things ordinary people would never believe. But somehow, this… this felt even stranger. Bizarre, in a way that defied all comparison. Both figuratively—and maybe, literally—out of this world.
Shirou lay back against his pillow, Eithne's words still echoing in his mind like a distant toll of a bell.
'Monsters. Falna. Adventurers. Guild.'
None of those belonged to the world he knew.
"Umm… excuse me, sir."
Eithne's gentle but firm voice drew him back. She stood at his bedside, eyes searching him carefully. "I hope it doesn't bother you if I ask… do you remember anything before? Or how you ended up in this condition?"
Shirou hesitated. He lacked any real knowledge of this place, but her question wasn't about where he was—it was about what had happened to him. The threat that had left his body in this state.
The truth was far uglier than he could say. His greatest wounds hadn't come from the outside—they were carved into his very soul. That battle had not been against just one foe, but two. He had resisted the overwhelming might of the King of Heroes and the consuming darkness of All the World's Evil. And though he survived, the cost was carved into him.
Avalon—though he didn't yet understand what lay within him—had worked tirelessly to keep the curse at bay. The radiant light that had once saved him in the fires of Fuyuki now pulsed faintly within, purging, mending. But even Avalon could not erase everything. His body bore scars, deep reminders of every moment he had endured. His limbs showed little at first glance, but to uncover his chest was to look upon a map of suffering. Each scar told its own story—the grail war, the clash of heroes, the night when Lancer's spear had pierced straight through his heart.
So when Shirou answered, he spoke with restraint. "I was attacked… by a blonde man. He was Arrogant, but powerful. He tried to kill me. I don't know why."
Eithne listened in silence, her expression grave. After a moment, she nodded and said, "I see. I'll report this to the Guild. If this man was truly responsible, he may be a remnant of Evilus."
'Great… another word I don't know.'
Still, Shirou didn't need explanation to guess. The name alone was enough to understand—it was infamous, not noble. Some kind of organization, most likely dangerous.
Eithne soon excused herself, intent on her report. In her absence, Niamh returned to her quiet duty of tending to Shirou. His body still throbbed with pain at the slightest movement, forcing him to remain dependent. When Niamh gently offered to help him eat, Shirou flushed with embarrassment but didn't protest.
It couldn't be helped.
---
Two days passed.
Though his body was still pinned to the bed by pain and weakness, Shirou didn't waste the time. He kept his mind busy, watching, analyzing. If he couldn't move yet, then at least he could learn.
There was much to take in.
The first thing he noticed was the language. At first, he thought nothing of it—communication flowed smoothly between him, Eithne, and Niamh. But the truth became clear when he paid closer attention. Whenever Niamh scribbled notes onto the small board at his bedside, the characters were unrecognizable. Not Japanese. Not English. Not even anything close to the scripts he had seen in books or history.
And yet… he understood every word they spoke. Perfectly. Their lips matched their voices. Their expressions aligned with their meaning. It was as if the gap between their world and his had been seamlessly bridged.
'How?' Shirou frowned inwardly. 'How can I understand them when this isn't Japanese?'
The second detail struck him harder. Magic.
Though subtle, he could see it all around. Sometimes through the window—villagers in the distance, casually conjuring sparks or weaving light in their hands as though it were no more unusual than drawing water. Within the clinic, staff members quietly used healing spells on patients. Soft glows of prana mended bruises, sealed cuts, soothed fevers. No secrecy. No hidden hands.
In the moonlit world, magecraft lived under a single absolute law: secrecy. The Mage Association had enforced it with merciless resolve. Any magus who broke that law risked exile, or worse—a sealing designation. For mystery was the foundation of magecraft. The fewer who knew, the greater the power. But the more it was revealed, the weaker it became. That was the concept of Mystery that magecraft had its foundation on.
Yet here, people used magic in the open sun. As casually as breathing.
'This isn't like the world I knew at all.'
Shirou's mind turned toward the possibilities. The sheer openness of it all could only mean one thing: this world's system of magic was built on an entirely different principle. Perhaps he had landed in an age long before magecraft had diminished. An era when gods still walked the earth and mysteries were abundant. 'Maybe… the Age of Gods. Or even the Age of Heroes, when phantasmal beasts had not yet been pushed into the Reverse Side of the World.'
And what did that mean for him? For his magecraft?
His tracing had already shown an unnatural improvement. The quality of his projections… it had risen beyond anything he should have been capable of. Normally, Gaia and Alaya—the wills of the planet and of humanity—would smother him with resistance, forcing him to burn more prana just to project even a simple sword. But here, that pressure felt absent. As if the world itself was no longer correcting him.
Does this mean… my magecraft doesn't need mystery to function here?
The thought made his chest tighten.
Or maybe it wasn't just the world. Maybe it was him. After all, he carried something no one else in this land could even begin to understand. His origin and element—both Sword. His tracing, his inner world, his hill of countless blades. He was the only magus here. The only one who knew this path. And in that way, his craft had never been more mysterious.
Perhaps that was why his projections felt sharper. Stronger. Almost like true magic.
Or perhaps it was something else entirely. The Gate of Babylon. The golden treasury he had seen etched into the heart of his Reality Marble.
Shirou let out a slow breath. He didn't yet know which answer was correct. But one thing was certain: the rules of this world were not the rules of his own.
And that meant he would need to tread carefully.
Shirou's thoughts were still tangled in the same loop of unanswered questions when the sound of soft footsteps reached his ears.
"Good morning, Emiya-kun! I hope you're hungry for breakfast," Niamh greeted cheerfully as she walked in with a small tray. Her auburn braid swayed lightly as she set the tray on the wooden table designed to rest over his bed.
"Thank you, Keegan-san. I appreciate your kindness," Shirou replied, giving a polite nod.
Niamh puffed her cheeks at his formality. "Mou, at this point you can just call me by my name. You're being way too polite, especially when we're nearly the same age."
Shirou gave a wry smile, scratching the back of his head. "Umm… alright then. How about… Keegan-chan?"
Her expression brightened instantly, and she gave a satisfied little huff. "Hmph. That'll do." She leaned on the edge of the bedframe. "Anyway, you're recovering at an unbelievable rate, Emiya-kun. I'd love to know how that's possible, but… I understand if you have your reasons not to share."
Shirou lowered his gaze slightly, his smile faint but genuine. "Thank you, Keegan-chan, for respecting that."
"No biggie," she said with a grin. "As part of the Brigid Familia, it's our duty to care for the flames who need it."
Brigid Familia, Shirou repeated inwardly. He had heard her mention the name before, but until now he hadn't thought much about it. From the way she said it, it was clearly some sort of group—or maybe an institution. Whatever it was, it seemed well-integrated into daily life, open enough to be spoken of casually.
Still, his instincts kept whispering caution. 'Guess it's only natural. When you have no idea where you are—or even what picture you're a part of—you start becoming cautious of the unknown. He sighed softly. Even after all these years, the old man's paranoia still rubs off on me.'
He thought back to the Holy Grail War. Back then, he hadn't faced danger alone—Rin and Saber had been there, people he could entrust his life to. But now, there was no one. Nothing was familiar—the sights, the scents, even the flow of energy in the air. Everything felt foreign. At times, he could even sense traces of something abnormal in the very air itself. Things that smelled anything but normal.
Finishing the last of his breakfast, Shirou pushed the tray aside and turned his gaze toward Niamh. "I think… I'd like to take a walk outside."
"Oh?" Her eyes lit up. "Do you want me to escort you? You can stand, sure, but without a cane it'll be tough to walk properly."
Carefully, Shirou swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. His knees wobbled for a moment, but he steadied himself with quiet determination. "No need, I can manage on my own. But… I'd appreciate it if you could lend me a cane."
"Alright," Niamh replied, nodding as she turned toward the door. "Stay put, I'll grab one."
The room fell quiet once again as Shirou waited, his thoughts still churning beneath his calm exterior.
Niamh left with quick, light steps, the door creaking softly as it shut behind her. Shirou remained standing by the bed, steadying himself with slow, even breaths. His body still felt heavy, sluggish, but compared to the pain and wounds he had endured before, this was something he could manage.
A short while later, the door opened again, and Niamh returned with a simple cane of polished wood in hand. "Here you go," she said, offering it with a smile.
"Thank you," Shirou replied, taking it and testing his balance. The wood felt sturdy, reliable—much like the girl herself, he thought briefly.
He placed one step forward, then another. The cane clicked gently against the wooden floorboards, keeping rhythm with his careful pace. Though his body protested with faint aches, it was nowhere near enough to stop him.
"Take it slow," Niamh advised, though her expression carried a faint hint of pride at seeing her patient move again.
"I will," Shirou assured her.
Step by step, he made his way to the door and finally crossed the threshold of the ward. A draft of fresh air flowed in from the hallway, carrying with it the faint scent of herbs, food, and something else—something alive.
Shirou inhaled deeply. 'So different from the city… It feels… clean. Free.'
Niamh walked just behind him, hands ready in case he faltered, but Shirou pressed onward, steadying himself. Before long, they reached the clinic's front door. With a push, sunlight poured in.
The brightness forced Shirou to narrow his eyes for a moment. But when they adjusted, his breath caught.
Spread out before him was the village—green fields swaying under the morning sun, farmers tending to crops, children chasing one another along dirt paths. Men and women passed by carrying baskets, tools, and water jars, their laughter mingling with the rustling of the wind.
Shirou tightened his grip on the cane. 'This really isn't the world I knew… not even close.'
Every sight, every sound, every scent reinforced it—the unfamiliar clothes, the earthy smell of soil tilled by hand, the absence of anything resembling the urban sprawl of Japan.
For just a moment, he allowed himself to stand still at the doorway, drinking it in.
Shirou walked calmly, the cane tapping lightly with each step as he made his way past the clinic. Behind it stretched wide fields, lush and green, where the orphanage children ran about with laughter that carried in the wind. Other patients ambled slowly, enjoying what sunlight they could.
The warmth of the morning breeze brushed against his face. Shirou paused, drawing in a long breath as he let the air settle deep into his lungs.
Now that I'm outside… I can truly tell. The mana here is abundant. Pure. It's nothing like the faint trickle back home. This entire land breathes it.
He let his gaze drift across the fields, thoughts wandering as Niamh's words from earlier resurfaced. 'Brigid Familia… Brigid, the Celtic Myth goddess of healing and smithcraft. Could it be they really worship their goddess here? Or even… carry out her work directly? If so… then perhaps this really is an age of gods.'
There were too many questions. But for once, Shirou decided not to chase them. Instead, he pressed forward, allowing himself the small reprieve of simple peace.
His steps carried him toward a small hill at the far end of the field. At its crown stood a towering tree, leaves swaying gently in the breeze. The sight drew him in almost unconsciously. Slowly, carefully, he climbed the slope and lowered himself beneath the tree's shade.
The scene spread before him was… nostalgic. The way the grass bent with the wind, the way birds called and the world seemed to breathe—he couldn't help but remember. Not his old home. Not even Fuyuki. But the fleeting glimpses he once saw through Saber. The squire tending horses, the small figure of Altria as she quietly followed the knights under Kay and Hector's watchful eyes.
Lying against the tree, Shirou let the peace wash over him. His body still resisted his movements—numb, heavy, uncooperative from the strain it had endured. Yet, at least, the pain was gone. He was thankful, too, that neither Niamh nor Eithne had pressed him on his unnaturally fast recovery. Explaining magecraft here would only invite suspicion he couldn't afford.
But peace was a fragile thing. The moment he let his thoughts drift, the worries came rushing back.
'Rin… Saber… Did you succeed? Did the grail truly vanish, or did it still threaten the world?'
His fist tightened against the grass. 'And what about me? These new circuits… and Gilgamesh's Gate… how? Why?'
A dull itch prickled in his right eye. At first, he ignored it. Then, without warning—
Pain.
A sudden, merciless spike tore through him, sharp enough to steal his breath. Shirou's world spun as he clutched at his face, the searing agony unlike even the curses of Angra Mainyu or the mortal wounds he had once survived.
In the blink of an eye, scenes erupted in his mind—countless and incomprehensible. Worlds, battles, lives, and memories not his own, flashing by in a torrent too vast, too senseless to grasp.
The sheer weight of it threatened to crush him. And so, as if in self-defense, Shirou's mind did the only thing it could.
It shut down.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
Hours passed before Shirou stirred again beneath the tree. His eyelids fluttered open, heavy as if weighed down by a hangover. A groan escaped as he raised a hand to his temple, the echo of that unbearable pain still lingering in his skull. Slowly, the fog in his mind thinned, leaving only fragments of the overwhelming flood of knowledge that had crashed into him.
When his senses settled, he realized he was still beneath the same tree. But now, a blanket covered him. Blinking at it, Shirou sat up, curiosity tugging at him. Instinctively, he traced the fabric—noticing again the strange ease with which magecraft flowed in this world—and a faint smile tugged at his lips. 'So it's hers…'
The sun was dipping low, painting the sky with orange hues. Realizing he'd been unconscious all day, Shirou rose carefully to his feet and began the slow walk back across the fields. His cane pressed lightly against the earth, each step steady but deliberate.
Before he could reach the clinic, a ball rolled across the grass, stopping against his foot. Looking up, he saw five children staring at him, wide-eyed and hesitant. Their gazes darted between him and the ball as though unsure if they should approach.
Shirou crouched down, picked up the ball, and walked toward them with a small, gentle smile. Holding it out to the nearest girl, he said warmly:
"Just be careful when you have fun, okay?"
The girl blinked, surprise giving way to a bright smile. The others quickly followed, their shyness melting into laughter as they took the ball and ran off, calling back their thanks.
"Thank you, Onii-chan!"
Shirou chuckled, shaking his head as he resumed his walk. By the time he returned to the ward, the sun was nearly gone.
Niamh greeted him with her usual cheer. "Did you enjoy your day, Emiya-kun?"
"Yeah," Shirou replied with a tired but content smile. "It felt good to bask in the sun and feel the breeze. You don't know how much I was dying—figuratively—just from being stuck on that bed."
"Glad to hear you're doing fine," she said brightly, preparing to continue her rounds. But as she turned, Shirou raised a hand.
"Wait," he said, holding out the blanket. "Thanks for this. It kept me comfortable through my nap."
Niamh's eyes widened in surprise. "Wait—how did you know it's mine?"
Shirou climbed back onto his bed, smirking with mock smugness. "I have my ways."
Her face deadpanned instantly. "…Perv."
Shirou matched her look, smirk still in place. "Says the one who left her blanket on a strange boy."
"Pfft—" Niamh giggled, breaking into laughter as she waved him off. "Hehe, just messing with you. So even you knew that you yourself are weird" She disappeared out the door, her giggles still lingering in the hall.
When silence finally settled, Shirou exhaled deeply, lying back on his bed. His mind wandered back to the hill, to that searing pain and the torrent of visions that had nearly broken him. And then, the truth clicked into place.
'Sha Naqba Imuru… The Omniscient, Omnipotent Star.'
The name reverberated in his mind like an echo. This wasn't just any relic. It was a Noble Phantasm, the distilled essence of Gilgamesh's will, his insight given form.
"He who saw the Deep." That was its meaning in the tongue of Akkad. With this eye, lies and disguises became transparent. Secrets crumbled with but a glance. It was more than sight—it was a gaze that pierced the past, unraveled the present, and even brushed against the countless paths of futures yet unrealized. A vision that could weigh possibilities and divine truths buried under endless layers.
For Gilgamesh—part mortal, part divine—such a burden was natural. But for Shirou, a mere human with a body already scarred and broken, the flood of information had nearly torn him apart. Even so, he had seen enough. Enough to answer the questions that had gnawed at him since waking in this world.
"So it's not just another timeline," he whispered into the empty ward. "This is a different world entirely."
The visions had painted it clearly. When Niamh spoke of Brigid, she had not been invoking a name, but the goddess herself. This was a world where the divine had truly walked among mortals. Where gods, sealing their Arcana, had chosen to bond with humanity through the system of Familias.
Before their descent, mankind had stood on the edge of extinction. Monsters had poured endlessly from the Dungeon's abyss, threatening to wipe humanity from existence. But then, a millennium ago, the gods came. They cast aside their omnipotence, choosing instead to live among men, birthing the Familia Era and the city at its heart—Orario.
For a thousand years, it was their golden age. Until fifteen years ago, when Zeus and Hera's great Familias fell. Evilus rose from the chaos, darkness spread, and the world staggered through its Dark Age.
Only now, in the aftermath, had the Age of Familias begun anew, with Orario at its center.
Shirou lay silent, absorbing the weight of this revelation. His hand tightened over his chest. 'So this… is the world the grail brought me to.'
Even after glimpsing the truth of this world, what shook Shirou most were the fragments that came next—visions not of the land around him, but of himself.
Scenes that didn't belong to the life he remembered.
He was certain: the final battle of the Holy Grail War had taken place atop Ryuudou Temple. He had stood against Gilgamesh alone, while Rin and Saber faced the abomination born of the corrupted grail. That was his reality. That was what happened.
But the visions showed something else. An underground cavern. A different battlefield. Not Gilgamesh, not the shadow, but Saber—altered, corrupted, twisted by the grail. And beside him, fighting not as an enemy but as an ally, was Rider. Rider—whose true name, he now saw clearly, was the Gorgon herself, Medusa.
Shirou's breath grew shallow as the visions overlapped with memory. They weren't delusions. They weren't lies. Sha Naqba Imuru had shown him what could have been—truths from parallel paths, where different choices had rewritten the story of the war.
And among those truths, one cut deeper than any scar.
That radiant light which had mended his body, which had always shielded him even back during the fire of Fuyuki—it wasn't some unknown miracle. It was Avalon, the sheath of Excalibur.
And it had not been his to begin with.
Shirou clenched his fist as the truth settled in.
'Avalon…'
The sheath had been inside him all along, buried so deeply he never once questioned how he had survived things that should have killed him outright. But the vision had shown it plainly. It wasn't by chance. It wasn't his own strength.
It was because Kiritsugu had given it up.
The old man had torn Avalon from within himself—the very thing that kept him alive despite the curse gnawing at his body and soul. Without it, there had been nothing to protect him from the poison of Angra Mainyu that had long seeped into his bones. Kiritsugu had condemned himself to die so that Shirou could live.
Shirou's chest tightened. 'So that night… it wasn't just the fire that killed him. It was me.'
For a fleeting moment, the survivor's guilt threatened to crush him. He pictured Kiritsugu's smile—the same faint, weary smile he had given him that night of the fire, and again the night before he died. A smile that carried no regret, only resolve.
It wasn't an accident. It wasn't forced. It was a choice.
Kiritsugu Emiya had lived a life full of compromise, a man whose ideals stripped away everything he loved—Natalia, Maiya, Irisviel, even Illyasviel. Every bond, every precious person, lost in pursuit of an impossible dream. So when he realized his ideals nearly caused the end of humanity when making his wish on a corrupted grail, he felt betrayed by his ideals. He wanted to least save someone, but through endless search of survivors of the fire he only found one boy, but that boy is enough for him.
That boy was Shirou.
Shirou closed his eyes, letting the weight of it press down on him.
'Because of me, again, someone had to die.'
That thought, poisonous and sharp, clawed its way through his mind. Kiritsugu had burned himself away to keep him alive. Just like Saber, Rin, and the others had risked everything for his sake in the Grail War. Just like Archer had scorned him for chasing ideals that would only destroy him. Every time, someone else had paid the price.
But then… he remembered that smile.
It wasn't the smile of a man cursing his fate. It was a smile of release, of fulfillment. Kiritsugu's ideals had taken everything from him, and still, he had chosen—chosen to protect just one life.
'To save one person… maybe that was enough for him.'
Shirou's grip on the sheets loosened. To blame himself would be to spit on that choice, to deny the very meaning of Kiritsugu's last act. He could not do that.
And yet… the visions from Sha Naqba Imuru gnawed at him.
He had seen other versions of himself—lives that could have been, lives that had diverged. One walked the same cursed path until he became Archer, hollow and bitter, the very embodiment of ideals turned to ash. Another abandoned his dream entirely for the sake of a single woman, a path driven not by ideals but by love. And another, bound to Saber, had fought with her as his reason, his purpose.
Each of them had their own truth. Their own choices. Their own person they couldn't let go of.
And here he was, clinging to a dream he already knew was impossible. A dream to save everyone, even knowing it would break him.
Is this really the right path for me?
The question echoed in his heart, louder than he wanted to admit.
He had tempered his ideals once, when facing Archer. He had acknowledged their impossibility, yet still chosen to fight for them. But now, standing in a new world, staring at truths that stripped away his certainty—he could no longer tell if he was walking forward… or stumbling toward a betrayal of himself.
Shirou let out a long, dejected sigh, rolling onto his back.
'Perhaps knowledge itself is a curse. The more you see, the less certain you become.'
---
End of Chapter