"It cannot be changed. Even if the current Shirou is killed, Archer will not disappear. He understands that himself."
Illya only learned this later through fragments of Shirou's other memories, although even her understanding was incomplete.
What she could be certain of, however, was that even if Archer truly killed Shirou, he still would not be able to change his fate of becoming a Guardian.
"...This is kind of complicated."
Blaze felt as if her brain was about to overheat. What was the point of killing yourself if it could not even change anything about yourself?
Was it simply for the satisfaction of doing it? That did not seem like Shirou's style.
Then again, judging from Archer's appearance, he had probably experienced around ten more years of life. Perhaps his mentality had changed during those ten years.
At that moment, Blaze's mind was constantly trying to figure out Archer's true intentions and all the possibilities behind his actions. Her brows were so tightly knitted together that she looked as though she had just bitten into a sour lemon.
"You are thinking in the wrong direction! Archer is not targeting Shirou himself. He is targeting the Emiya Shirou who holds onto the ideal of becoming an Ally of Justice."
Seeing everyone struggling to understand, Illya continued.
Rather than wanting to kill Shirou, it would be more accurate to say that Archer wanted to kill the Shirou who dreamed of becoming an ally of justice.
As long as Shirou abandoned that ideal and avoided walking down the same path, Archer would generally leave him alone. He might even lend a helping hand when Shirou needed it.
The current situation was simply a little special, causing Archer to push the matter lower on his list of priorities.
At the end of the day, he was still someone who wanted to be an ally of justice. When faced with imminent danger, there was no way he could stand by and do nothing. He would even set aside his own obsessions for the sake of dealing with it.
Illya just did not particularly like that way of thinking.
After all, Kiritsugu had—
At that thought, Illya shook her head, forcing the chaotic thoughts out of her mind.
"Ah... uh..."
With Illya's explanation, Blaze became even more confused and could only turn toward Amiya.
That adorable little rabbit was so smart. Surely she understood what was going on, right?
"You will probably understand once we see more of it... All right, all right, stop crowding me! I will explain!"
Originally, Amiya had not wanted to explain things right now. She was still carefully observing and recording Shirou's behavior and mental condition.
But Blaze had practically thrown herself onto her, making it impossible to continue her observations.
After Amiya's brief explanation, Blaze finally understood what Archer was thinking.
Even so, she still could not understand the purpose behind it.
"But killing Shirou's ideal still would not change the fact that he becomes a Heroic Spirit, would it?"
Not only Blaze, but Amiya and the members of Penguin Logistics also could not figure it out.
"What do all of you think justice is? And what exactly is an ally of justice?"
Talulah looked at the troubled expressions on their faces and asked the question.
The three members of Reunion had heard Archer's thoughts on the matter before. At the time, Talulah had simply assumed he was lecturing her again for being too naive.
But now, in light of everything they had seen...
It seemed that he had been speaking from the perspective of someone who had already walked that path.
"Punishing evil and helping others?"
The first thing that came to Amiya's mind was the sort of phrases Nameless often muttered absentmindedly.
Blaze and Rosmontis thought of similar answers.
"Well... doing good deeds? Helping other people?"
The Penguin Logistics group took much longer to think of an answer. After all, the concept of justice did not exactly match the image of Penguin Logistics.
Still, when they thought about Shirou's usual actions, they could more or less come up with something.
"All of you are correct. Justice is nothing more than a slogan, a belief. If you want to, you can completely convince yourself that everything you do is justice."
"To put it more cruelly, justice is simply the side with more people. In the eyes of ordinary people, the Infected are evil, are they not? People would rather see them wiped out entirely."
After witnessing so much over the years, Talulah was no longer the inexperienced girl she once was.
Archer's constant lectures had always been irritating, but when she thought about them carefully, she could understand the intentions behind them.
If those words had not remained in her mind all this time, perhaps she really would have become exactly what Koschei wanted her to become.
No.
As long as Alina, Frostnova, Patriot, and everyone else were there, that would never have happened.
Besides, Archer had already driven Koschei out of her body using that strange dagger. That man could never interfere with her again.
"Talulah, calm down. Everyone views things from different perspectives. From my point of view, your actions are justice. As for Shirou, his idea of justice is probably saving everyone standing before him."
After gently calming the increasingly agitated Talulah, Alina shared her own opinion.
Seeing someone finally arrive at the correct answer, Illya continued:
"At that time, he exchanged his own future after death for a miracle and saved five hundred lives. He believed that becoming a Guardian would allow him to save even more people, but reality was completely different from what he imagined.
"As a Guardian, he would be summoned whenever necessary to resolve disasters. But the only condition for summoning a Guardian was destruction brought about by humanity itself. He was forced to witness endless cycles of humanity destroying itself and then clean up the mess left behind.
"The things he did certainly saved countless lives. But at the same time, he also killed countless people. He killed those who might one day bring about humanity's destruction. It did not matter whether they were the elderly, women, or children.
"Again and again, he placed human lives upon a scale. Again and again, he chose the side with the greater number. Again and again, he killed the very people he once wanted to protect."
"He regretted it. He hated what he had become, and he had forgotten the ideals he started with. So he tried to kill himself by destroying the ideals of his past self.
"Even though he knew very well that doing so would not make him disappear, he still wanted to do it. Because he knew exactly what kind of ending awaited an Emiya Shirou who carried such an ideal."
In just a few sentences, Illya clearly explained why Archer held hostility toward his former self.
She had not explained it outright from the beginning because she wanted everyone to think more deeply about it themselves.
After all, conclusions reached through one's own reflection tend to stay in the memory much longer.
The reason was simple: the current Shirou was already showing signs of heading down that path.
As for Terra and the land they stood upon, Illya was not particularly familiar with them, so she could not determine whether that development would ultimately be good or bad.
If she were being honest, she personally hoped Shirou could simply live the life of an ordinary person, far away from conflict and suffering, and peacefully spend the rest of his days like anyone else.
Unfortunately, she was merely a being formed from a fragment of consciousness and magical energy.
She was unable to remain by Shirou's side for very long.
Once her consciousness awakened, she would burn away like firewood, continuously consuming herself until the awareness and magical energy sustaining her existence were exhausted.
If she maintained only the minimum level of activity, she could probably last for several months.
But that would be meaningless.
Rather than preserving a tiny flicker of light for a long time, she would rather add more fuel to the flame and make it burn brighter, illuminating the road ahead for Shirou.
Last time, he had reached out and taken her hand.
This time, she should respond in kind.
Perhaps because time had continued to move forward and the moment of her appearance was drawing near once again, Illya found herself thinking about many things.
It did not matter, though.
Everyone else had fallen silent because of the previous discussion, leaving her with plenty of time to reminisce about the past.
The topic was simply too heavy.
And worse still, it was not as distant from them as they would have liked.
That was especially true for the people of Rhodes Island and Reunion.
If saving more people required sacrificing a smaller number of others...
That kind of dilemma was enough to roast a person's conscience alive.
Merely imagining it was agonizing.
How much worse must it be for those who actually had to make such choices?
"In the end, he was executed by hanging, right?"
Listening to Illya's explanation, Texas felt as though she had remembered something.
The memory was hazy, like a dream from a very distant past, yet Illya's words had stirred those long-buried recollections.
So much time had passed that she could not even remember where she had seen them.
Although the details were gone, those memories had still subtly influenced the way they viewed Shirou.
"Yes. He ended the war, yet in the end he was branded as the mastermind behind it and sent to the gallows.."
The one who answered Texas was Alina.
"Although the memories are fragmented, Nameless seems to have met a similar end as well..."
Hearing Alina's words, Amiya recalled the nightmares she occasionally experienced.
Blood.
Corpses.
And all kinds of experimental subjects.
The memory that left the deepest impression on her was of a man looking at the crowd gathered to celebrate his death.
With a scornful smile on his face, he stepped onto the gallows.
"Now that you mention it, the ideal of being an ally of justice suddenly sounds kind of terrifying."
After listening to Alina and Amiya, Croissant found Shirou's long-held ideal rather frightening.
They needed to find some way to make him abandon that idea as soon as possible.
Otherwise, he might end up with a noose around his neck one day.
"He was simply born in the wrong era. In Shirou's relatively peaceful age, people would criticize him endlessly. But place him somewhere a little more chaotic, and he would unquestionably be one of the good guys. A genuine hero."
Talulah spoke after finally calming down somewhat.
"That still sounds pretty dangerous. We need to think of something."
Exusiai partly agreed with Talulah's assessment, but she still felt that it was far too dangerous.
After all, she had not even gotten the chance to eat an apple pie personally baked by Shirou yet!
On a strangely specific level, everyone had miraculously reached the same conclusion as Illya—
They all hoped Shirou could live a more ordinary life.
As the discussion continued, time within the scene moved forward.
Then, someone appeared before Shirou during a shopping trip.
Someone no one had expected.
"Good morning, big brother."
Illya stood ahead of him and greeted him cheerfully.
"...Morning."
The moment he saw Illya, Shirou instinctively glanced around, worried that Berserker might suddenly come charging out from somewhere nearby.
"There is no need to worry. It is still far too early for that!"
Seeing his reaction, Illya said nothing more and simply stepped closer, curiously examining what he was carrying.
"Hmm... it is all ingredients. Big brother, do you really like cooking that much?"
After circling around him, Illya realized that almost everything he was carrying was food ingredients, and fairly cheap ones at that.
"You could say I like it."
Shirou nodded.
After confirming that the girl before him held no hostility, Shirou finally relaxed a little and answered her question.
It was not anything particularly important anyway, so there was no harm in talking about it.
"I see. That is quite an ordinary hobby. Oh, right! Can I just call you Shirou?"
The moment she got her answer, Illya immediately lost interest in the ingredients and switched to another topic.
"...You can."
Looking into those sincere eyes, Shirou simply could not bring himself to refuse her request.
"Then you can just call me Illya too, Shirou! I have already heard about your achievements from Sella. For someone who could barely use magecraft properly just a few days ago, you are actually pretty impressive."
The instant Shirou agreed, a bright smile bloomed across Illya's face.
With her hands clasped behind her back, she skipped over to stand in front of him while talking about everything she had heard.
He had repelled Rider and Caster. Although Rin and Archer had helped along the way, it was still an impressive accomplishment.
"But I still cannot beat your Berserker, can I?"
Faced with such sudden praise, Shirou felt awkward and ended up blurting out exactly what he was thinking.
"Hehe! That is right! Berserker is the strongest!"
Though Shirou had spoken without much thought, Illya was clearly delighted by his response.
"..."
Shirou said nothing further, but everyone could easily tell what was going through his mind.
"She actually seems pretty easy to get along with."
Just moments ago he had still been on guard. Yet after seeing Illya standing proudly with her hands on her hips while praising her Servant, the concept of caution had completely vanished from his mind.
Of course, the main reason he relaxed was because Illya genuinely did not seem hostile.
The two of them soon sat down together on a park bench and began chatting.
They did not discuss the Holy Grail War at all.
Instead, they simply talked about their likes, interests, and everyday things.
The entire scene felt remarkably peaceful, like an older brother bringing his younger sister to the park.
As time passed, the sky gradually darkened.
Only then did Illya hop down from the bench and prepare to leave.
After all, once night came, she and Shirou would be enemies.
Shirou, however, clearly was not thinking that far ahead.
The moment he saw Illya jump down from the bench, he instinctively reached out and grabbed her hand.
"Shirou?"
Illya looked at him in confusion after suddenly being stopped.
"Uh... well... would you like to have dinner with us? I bought quite a lot of ingredients."
Realizing his action had probably been unnecessary, Shirou felt rather embarrassed.
His mind raced as he searched for an explanation.
Only after noticing the groceries beside him did he manage to come up with that excuse on the spot.
The moment the words left his mouth, however, he began to regret them.
After all, Taiga and Saber were waiting at home.
Bringing Illya back with him so casually was admittedly a bit reckless.
But the invitation had already been spoken aloud.
Trying to take it back now would only make things even more awkward.
So Shirou simply closed his mouth and waited for Illya's answer.
"Inviting a girl you have only met a few times back to your house? Shirou, you are surprisingly bold."
She grinned mischievously.
"But since I had such a nice time talking with you, I will accept!"
Illya accepted the invitation with a smile even brighter than before.
At the same time, she tightened her grip and clasped the hand that Shirou had used to stop her.