Fuji-nee stormed into the house like a whirlwind, as she always did, but the moment she spotted Shirō sitting at the table, carefully wrapping bandages around her arm, all the energy drained from her face. Her eyes widened in horror.
"Shirō—Saber-chan! What happened?!"
Shirō barely looked up, too focused on tying the bandage securely. The thin cuts on her arm stung, a reminder of Illya's magical threads slicing at her skin during their fight. She had gotten off easy compared to what could have happened.
"Just a thug with a blade," she muttered.
Fuji-nee gasped, rushing over, nearly knocking over a chair in her hurry. "A thug?! Attacked you?! With a blade?! Where is he?!"
Shirō sighed. "He ran off."
"That bastard!" Fuji-nee fumed, hands on her hips, looking ready to march out the door and hunt the guy down herself. "I swear, this city is getting worse by the day!" Then her eyes darted back to the bandages, her face full of worry. "Why didn't you call me?! I should be the one taking care of you!"
"It's just some scratches."
"Scratches?! Saber-chan, you're bleeding!" Fuji-nee grabbed the bandages from Shirō's hands, her movements frantic but determined. "I can't let you do this yourself! Oh my God, I can't even look Shirō in the face if he comes home and sees you like this! He'll think I'm the worst guardian ever!"
Shirō barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I can take care of myself, Fuji-nee."
"Nope! I don't want to hear it! Hand over that arm!"
With the force of a woman who had dealt with countless stubborn students before, Fuji-nee yanked Shirō's injured arm toward her and started redoing the bandages, grumbling the entire time. Shirō let her, knowing that arguing would just make things worse.
"Geez," Fuji-nee muttered, carefully securing the wrap. "First, Shirō disappears for days, and now you come home looking like you got into a fight with a wild animal. What is going on in this house lately?!"
Shirō stayed silent.
Fuji-nee sighed, shaking her head. "You should be more careful, Saber-chan. It's dangerous out there."
Shirō didn't respond. More careful, huh? If only it were that simple.
Shirō sat in the dimly lit kitchen, her arms resting on the wooden table as Fuji-nee fussed over her bandages. The sting of the antiseptic was mild, barely noticeable compared to the weight pressing down on her mind. Her thoughts were a tangled mess, looping back to the same question over and over again. She could still hear Archer's voice, sharp and cutting, as he spoke of Kiritsugu.
A mercenary. A mage killer. A man who won the Holy Grail War but rejected it, casting it aside like a broken dream.
That couldn't be right. Could it?
Shirō stared at her hand, flexing her fingers, feeling the dull ache of exhaustion. The hand that once held Excalibur, that cut through her enemies with power far beyond her understanding. That hand, like everything else about her, was now tangled in a legacy she hadn't even begun to grasp.
Fuji-nee had fallen quiet after finishing the bandages, but Shirō could tell she was still troubled. The woman was never good at hiding her emotions. She was like an open book, easy to read, her face shifting with every thought. Right now, she was staring at Shirō like she wanted to say something but didn't know how to begin.
That was fine. Shirō had a question of her own.
"Fuji-nee," she said, voice steady but firm. "What did Kiritsugu-san do before adopting Shirō?"
Fuji-nee blinked. "Huh?"
Shirō kept her gaze steady. "Before he took Shirō in. What was his job?"
Fuji-nee shifted uncomfortably. "Why do you want to know that, Saber-chan?"
"Because," Shirō said, exhaling slowly, "I was told he was an assassin."
Fuji-nee's expression froze.
"And," Shirō continued, watching her carefully, "I think Shirō has the right to know about the man he idolizes."
A long silence stretched between them. The kind of silence that felt heavy, as if it carried the weight of years. Shirō could see Fuji-nee processing the words, struggling between honesty and the need to protect Shirō's memory of the man he admired most.
Finally, Fuji-nee sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Kiritsugu… He was always a complicated person," she said quietly. "I didn't know much about his past, but I could tell. He was a man carrying a lot of burdens. Like he was atoning for something only he could see."
She looked at Shirō, her gaze distant, as if she was recalling memories buried deep.
"I remember how he used to sit on the porch, staring at nothing, like he was somewhere else entirely. His eyes… they weren't the eyes of a normal man. They were dark. Heavy. Like he had seen too much and couldn't forget it, no matter how much he wanted to."
Shirō listened in silence, her fingers tightening into a fist.
"But," Fuji-nee continued, a small, sad smile appearing, "no matter what he did before, he was still Shirō's hero. The man who saved him, raised him, gave him a home. And I don't think that will ever change. Ne, Saber-chan?"
Shirō didn't answer right away. She thought about Archer's words, about Illya's accusations, about everything she had heard about Kiritsugu in just a single night.
But more than that, she thought about Shirō.
The boy who admired Kiritsugu more than anything. Who dedicated his entire life to living up to the ideal his father left behind.
Shirō had always been stubborn, always chasing after something beyond reach. And now, she was beginning to understand why.
"Hmm," she finally murmured, eyes drifting to the window, where the moon hung high in the sky.
The past couldn't be changed. But the future? That was still in her hands.