Chapter 35
Emiya
After making sure the kids had been fed, Emiya slipped out of the PRT HQ and headed toward the market.
As much as he disliked admitting it, living on the organization's dime came with real advantages.
Bills no longer stalked him. School supplies, toiletries, all the necessities he used to ration with surgical precision—none of them hovered over him anymore. He no longer had to choose between buying Tanya something nice or setting the money aside for her education.
And of course, the food budget had expanded. The majority of their salary went into their college fund, but the slice they received directly was a nice supplement to his business earnings. With no rent or utilities draining his pockets, Emiya suddenly had more disposable income than he knew what to do with.
Most of it still went into savings, but with a bit more financial freedom he could afford to cook better dishes.
As much as Emiya liked European cuisine, after years of a western diet, traditional Japanese meals were a breath of fresh air. The fragrance of spices, the soft sizzle of tofu frying on the pan, the miso—they brought him back to the sunny days in Fuyuki and Sakura's gentle smiles.
Just a memory, but vivid enough that every meal felt like opening a door he thought had long since closed.
Tanya enjoyed the meals too—of course she did—and with the key ingredients being so much cheaper in Brockton Bay if you knew where to look, Emiya could finally cook without counting every grain of rice. He could even afford to pack extra servings for the Wards, if only so the reek of frozen, processed trash wouldn't drift over and spoil his and Tanya's meals.
Even back on the edge of poverty, he'd always managed to eat better than frozen pizza and hamburgers he'd found in the freezer on the first day. If the Wards had enough time and energy to play superheroes, they could damn well learn how to cook.
In someone else's kitchen, obviously.
But being wholly reliant on the PRT left a sour taste in his mouth, so he kept himself busy by working as a handyman.
No—he was an entrepreneur now. He had a business card to prove it.
Danvers Repairs. Some things just need the right touch.
Not strictly a necessity anymore, but a nice way to subsidize the costs.
That's why Emiya was walking through the narrow streets leading to the Asian Market, locking eyes with a smoking figure slouched on the porch of a building spray-tagged with garish colors.
Emiya had spotted him a while ago and had been spotted in turn, though significantly later.
An ABB member.
He kept walking.
The thug rose with a performative swagger, clearly mistaking Emiya for an easy mark. He cracked his shoulders and puffed out his chest in an attempt to look confident and dangerous.
Emiya walked on without breaking rhythm, keeping his eyes fixed on the thug. Nothing in his posture changed—no tensing of muscles, no flare of aggression. Just steady, deliberate steps, an unwavering gaze, and the faintest trace of killing intent bleeding through with every footfall.
At ten meters, the first crack appeared. The slight hitch in thug's posture. He was accustomed to people cowering at the sight of gang colors and a practiced menace. Eyes darted across Emiya's clothes, face, and hands, searching for the source of the wrongness.
At five meters, Emiya saw his jaw clench hard enough to make the cigarette wobble. The proverbial pressure in the air made the thug hesitant and unsure.
At two meters, the bravado finally slipped. Worry openly flashed across his face, and the thug nearly stepped back before he caught himself. Emiya imagined that to his hindbrain it must have felt as if a ship had left the Boat Graveyard and was casually drifting toward his spot. Survival instincts were sensitive like that.
By the time they closed to arm's reach, the thug had gone completely still.
Emiya simply walked past.
Behind him, he could almost hear the thug's brain rebooting: confusion, embarrassment, a sputter of anger as he yanked the half-burnt cigarette from his mouth with sweaty fingers and spun around, ready to reclaim his pride—
Only to find Emiya standing behind him.
Watching.
The thug's body reacted before his mind did, freezing a second. After a tense moment, he tossed the cigarette away and slunk back into the building, awkwardly trying to salvage his dignity with the world's least convincing "this-was-my-plan" swagger.
Emiya shook his head. That made four ABB encounters on the way to the market tonight. He'd steered clear of the other ones, but this guy was a peacock—mostly bravado with very little backbone behind it. Not worth going around.
Thankfully, the rest of the way was clear of the gang members.
"Ah, Danvers-kun!" Ichirou greeted in Japanese, grinning ear to ear. "Here to collect your payment?" He lifted a bag and thumped it onto the counter of his stall.
"It's all there, I hope?" Emiya in kind. Tanya's books insisted on speaking to people in their native tongue whenever possible—good business practice, apparently.
"Of course! Ayame would carve out my heart and serve it stir-fried if I ever shortchanged you."
The man's daughter smacked him on the shoulder for the joke.
"Stop it, otou-san."
She tugged the bag out of his hands and passed it to Emiya herself.
He accepted the bag with a polite nod, but business was business, and Tanya would carve out his heart if he didn't confirm the payment.
"So, Danvers-kun," Ichirou said in an easy tone, "how's life been treating you?"
"As usual. Hope things are steady on your end," Emiya answered, scanning the contents of the bag.
Hmm.
"Same as always, I suppose. Just trying to make as much money as I can while there's still time—before the bad days," he said, the apology clear in his voice.
Emiya paused in his inspection. "Bad days? The PRT captured Lung tonight. From what I've heard, he's the only thing keeping the ABB together."
At least, that was Tanya's assessment of Brockton Bay's criminal ecosystem. With them gone, Emiya imagined the PRT could clean up the rest. The end of the ABB's tyranny should be the opposite of bad days.
"Indeed," Ichirou nodded, placing the vegetables on the cutting board.
"I don't follow."
Ichirou let out a long breath. "Make no mistake, Danvers-kun. The Dragon isn't loved here. Far from it. But as bad as he is, without him—and without the ABB—things will get worse. Much worse."
"The ABB forces locals into the gang as soldiers and prostitutes," Emiya countered. "They traffic people, push drugs and shake down shopkeepers. That's not ninkyo-dantai, Ichirou—just gedo. How could losing them possibly make things worse?"
Old man Raiga would've had a conniption seeing how the ABB operated. Emiya couldn't even imagine Taiga's reaction. She'd wanted nothing to do with the yakuza life, and that was with Raiga keeping his house in order.
There was a reason Emiya could ignore the Fujimura Group, and it went beyond Taiga being his legal guardian.
"True," Ichirou admitted, his knife tapping steadily against the cutting board. "You'll hear no argument from me on that."
He paused, breath settling.
"But let me tell you a story, Danvers-kun. It wasn't always just me and Ayame working at a small food stall. I had two daughters, once. My eldest, Saeko… she was everything a father could hope for. Loving. Dutiful," he whispered softly. "After Leviathan took her mother—may he burn in hell, far from any shore— Saeko stepped into her place without hesitation."
Ichirou's eyes seemed to dim, the present dissolving into an old, familiar ache.
"When we came to this city, she bore the weight of our future. I was wrestling with English, and Ayame was barely out of childhood. But Saeko—she was bright. So bright. She learned the language in a heartbeat, worked long days, studied longer nights. She had a plan, you see: earn a degree, build a career, buy us a home far from Brockton Bay's hatred and violence. That was her dream. The American Dream," he said, a dry, broken laugh escaping him.
"I worked any job I could. Saved every cent. Even took work that left scars I'd rather forget," he added, fingers brushing the knife mark on his cheek as a hint of tattoo ink flashed beneath his sleeve. "My girls deserved nothing less."
Emiya was already aware that Ichirou's past wasn't exactly clean. Scars were one thing, and he hid the ink well, but the missing phalanx on his pinkie told a definitive story. Emiya had spent enough time around gokudo to know the meaning.
"And then… the Empire came."
His voice hardened into something brittle and sharp.
"No one agrees on why. Some say Allfather's hatred finally boiled over. Others say he couldn't stand to see our children prosper after his own daughter died to a villain who then vanished into the Birdcage, far from his reach. Some say it was simply bound to happen one day; the Empire being what it is. None of it matters. All I know that nine years ago, Saeko died when Allfather sent his wolves to our homes!"
"We had many smaller gangs back then. Every community that came from overseas formed its own group—Jiro-san, Taek-Ho, Liao Gui… Not saints by any stretch, no better than the ABB in many respects, but worse in one important aspect: they were fractured. Always competing for territory, money, influence. They fought when the Empire came, yes—but only to shield their own streets. And the Empire knew it. They hit one group's turf at a time, never two together. Picked us apart like wolves circling separate herds."
"Eventually, everyone realized the Empire wouldn't stop at targeting only their rivals, so the gangs banded together in an uneasy alliance. Between them and the heroes, the Empire was finally stopped after weeks of street battles."
He exhaled, slow and heavy.
"But the price was steep. The Empire left many graves behind them… Saeko's among them. The only consolation was that Allfather died not long after. A cold and shallow comfort, but at least his son was too busy consolidating his power to clean the city."
Emiya could guess what happened after. Ichirou had left whatever gang affiliations he had to take care of his only surviving daughter. And seeing as Ayame was working the food stall with her father, instead of having a white-collar job or going to college, things hadn't exactly go well.
"Then the Dragon came. He forcefully pulled the scattered factions under one banner and demonstrated his strength to the whole city by defeating an entire Protectorate. When challengers came, he and the Oni showed no mercy. Eventually, even the Empire learned its lesson. Only Purity could come here to take potshots at people from a safe distance."
The more Ichirou talked, the deeper Emiya's frown grew.
"Isn't it the PRT's job to protect you? With Lung gone, if the Empire tries another pogrom, they'll be stopped."
"Maybe," Ichirou allowed, though the word sounded hollow. "If Kaiser openly marched from the south waving a flag, perhaps. But he won't. The Empire will arrive in unmarked vans, slipping in during the night before unleashing havoc. Just like they did before."
He shook his head.
"The heroes are reactive, Danvers-kun. They only move once the fighting is already underway, and by then, half the damage is done. And their base is far from here. Too far. Every Empire attack will claim lives before the heroes push them back… if they manage to push them back."
He scraped the vegetables into the pot with the edge of his knife.
"The PRT must protect the whole city, not just us. They can't station themselves here, and they certainly don't inspire the fear the Dragon does. You may recall that when Armsmaster caught Hookwolf, Kaiser sent his people everywhere except here. Because he knew they would be slaughtered."
Ichirou sighed.
"Now there's only the Oni and one other cape, and I fear that will not be enough to keep the wolves away."
He glanced at the bag in Emiya's hands, shame flickering across his expression.
"So forgive an old man's selfishness, Danvers-kun… but I much prefer the devil I know. The ABB takes sons for soldiers, yes—but if you pay their price, they leave the daughters alone."
He glanced at his daughter.
"Unless the Dragon takes interest. Then nothing can save them."
Emiya's gaze drifted toward Ayame, who stirred the simmering pot with quiet diligence, doing her best to stay outside the conversation. The girl was cute enough, he supposed, carrying that strange mix of cheer and forced maturity Taiga sometimes put on like an ill-fitting coat.
But now he noticed something else: a deliberate kind of unkemptness. Skin just oily enough to seem unwashed, hair tied into a lopsided bun that did her no favors, clothes marked with grease and stains. All of it could be chalked up to poverty and long hours in front of a stove… but Emiya found himself wondering if it wasn't maintained on purpose. By her, or by Ichirou.
"With that said… Danvers-kun, stop coming here. These streets aren't safe for you."
"Sending me away like Lisa?" Emiya smirked. "I can handle myself, Ichirou."
"Arrogant boy," Ichirou said, shaking his head with weary frustration. "How long do you think you can keep walking through ABB turf without someone grabbing you? Frankly, I'm shocked it hasn't happened already."
It would take more than regular street thugs to grab Emiya.
He waved the warning away. "I'm telling you, I'll be fine. And where was all this concern before now? I've been walking this route for a month now."
Ichirou snorted. "Why should I have cared? A hafu boy with a Western name wanders into ABB turf and gets taken—what's that to me? To any of us on the market? Even if you speak our tongue, we have our own children, our own worries. When luck brings someone cheap and skilled, we take the blessing and save on repairs while we can."
Emiya shook his head with a rueful smirk. He knew exactly what Ichirou was trying to pull, and Emiya was far too old to fall for it.
"I need the money too, you know. I've got a little sister to support."
"Oh?" Ichirou paused mid-motion, eyebrow arching. "Are your parents so poor their son has to keep the household afloat?"
"Our mother died some time ago," Emiya shrugged.
"And your father?"
"Not around."
Comfortably so, in Emiya's opinion. Things had already been awkward enough with Sumire hovering around; if Armsmaster tried to baby him, Emiya wasn't sure he wouldn't snap outright.
Tanya on the other hand... Out loud, her stated reason for dragging him into Armsmaster's workshop was deference to the chain of command and professional favors. But Emiya had seen the spark in her eyes, the way she all but bounced at the idea.
It wasn't strange for a girl who'd never known her father to seek a substitute. It made a certain kind of painful sense.
It's just... Emiya didn't quite know how to break it to her that it simply wasn't happening here. He mulled over this issue for some time, but eventually decided to put the issue in a box.
Let Armsmaster dig his own grave.
Ichirou hummed, slow and considering, as he wiped the edge of his knife clean on his apron. "I see. So you're the one who takes care of her. Provides for her."
"Pretty much," Emiya said. "I practically raised her myself, took the jobs I can to keep us afloat."
Or he used to.
"Admirable indeed, Danvers-kun." Ichirou's tone took a strange edge. "Do you have a photo of her, by any chance?"
It was Emiya's turn to raise an eyebrow. He wasn't in the habit of sharing the photos of his sister—but across the counter Ayame perked up at the question, her earlier gloom peeling away.
Emiya reached into his pocket and pulled out his personal phone. Normally he would stick to the cheapest models without cameras, but this one had belonged to a client who'd managed to get himself lost in the sprawling parahuman forest that used to be Central Park. Emiya would've sold it, except Tanya had flatly refused to let him.
She had lectured him about needing GPS in case he got kidnapped, about phone cameras being the fastest way to protect themselves from the kind of legal misunderstandings they couldn't afford. She had even threatened to sell her own phone if he kept resisting.
He'd ended up using the camera exactly once; to prove that it worked. The single photo stored on it was Tanya sitting on the couch in their old New York apartment.
Ichirou took the phone, lifting it closer for a better look.
"She's adorable!" Ayame exclaimed, eyes brightening with genuine delight. "She looks like a tiny doll!"
"Yes," Ichirou agreed with a nod. "Adorable child. And what sharp eyes! She's smart, no?"
"Very."
"I see. Planning to send her to college, right?"
Ichirou's tone was very leading, but, "...Yes."
"A pity that'll never happen. All that awaits her is grief when her fool brother disappears. Oh, how she will weep!"
Emiya sighed. This was getting old fast.
"You're still on about that? I told you—"
"Look at her!" Ichirou suddenly barked, shoving the phone toward him. "This is your sister, waiting for you to come home! Meanwhile, her brother is gallivanting through gang territory alone at night! And for what?"
"Money."
"What money? We've been tossing you scraps and you gobble them up like a dog!"
Emiya scoffed and—unable to resist—lifted a finger in his best imitation of Rin Lecturing Pose. "It's called mutual economic reinforcement through non-monetary liquidity. Cut out the middleman. I need food; you need the money to get me more and better food. A clean, efficient, mutually beneficial loop."
Ah, the benefits of business literacy and an understanding of supply and demand. Tanya would be proud. Emiya had, after all, read the books she'd been giving him—just not trash like the PRT's guidebook for aspiring heroes.
Ichirou could only stare, utterly dumbfounded.
"You're not listening at all, are you? Do you have any idea how cheap our payments are?"
"Setting my own prices is part of the freedom of being an independent businessman," Emiya pointed out. "Cheap services are affordable services. It widens the customer pool and gives my business a leg up on competition."
Ichirou's nostrils flared in frustration.
"Xiao Shifu, Huo Leifeng, Suri Sonyeon, Ichiba no Kishi. That's what we call you around here. Thanks to you, Nakamura-san was able to afford new clothes for her children, Maria-san made enough to pay the Dragon's due, and old Wei Li had enough cash to see a doctor. They might sound like nice names, but they all mean the same thing: fool."
"I'm starting to suspect there's a point buried under all this," Emiya said, voice dripping with dry sarcasm. He was already regretting letting the phone out of his hands. And it was getting late besides.
"We've been scamming you all this time!" Ichirou roared. "All of us! We pay you scraps—less than scraps! That bag you're holding doesn't even have half of what I owe you, and you said nothing. Not a word!"
"You pay what you can; I get what I need," Emiya shrugged.
Namely enough ingredients for his cooking.
And Ichirou wasn't the only one who owed Emiya. There was enough in the bag to tide him over for the next few days, and then he can simply do another run. It really wasn't an issue.
As for the prices, it was a simple matter of costs and effort. Considering Emiya was fixing things with magecraft, costs were non-existent and effort was trivial. A nice little competitive advantage, but there was no way to explain that to Ichirou.
"You have a dependent, you idiot boy!" Ichirou thundered. "I thought you were just some well-off kid with a side-hustle! You aren't from around here; you look fit and healthy. What harm in shaving a little off before you wised up or got bored? But now—now—you're telling me that all this time I've been robbing not one but two orphans?!"
Ayame's eyes shimmered. She looked ready to cry.
It suddenly dawned on Emiya, that in an effort to win an argument, he may have unwittingly pushed every one of Ichirou's buttons. The man just shared a story about his daughter.
And now, he jumped to the worst interpretation of everything, if not heavily projecting his own regrets.
"I think there's been a misunderstanding—" Emiya started.
Ichirou didn't let him finish. He flung the phone straight at Emiya's face.
Emiya snatched it out of the air without effort.
"Get out!" Ichirou shouted. "Get out, you foolish boy! Don't you dare come back here! Go to your sister and beg her forgiveness—on your knees! For risking your life and her future like this… for nothing!"
This was going downhill fast. Emiya wanted to correct Ichirou and explain how things actually were, but looking at his face it was doubtful the man would listen to reason.
Discretion was the better part of valor in this case. Better to let the man cool off and come back another day.
Emiya bowed with polite formality and turned away, leaving behind the echo of Ichirou's furious, grief-laden shouting.
A block away, after the stall disappeared behind graffiti-covered buildings, he heard frantic footsteps behind him.
"Danvers-kun, wait!" Ayame's voice rang out.
Emiya halted and faced her, letting the girl gulp in air before she spoke.
"I'm really, truly sorry about my father, Danvers-kun," Ayame said, folding herself into a deep, earnest bow.
"It's nothing," Emiya replied, shrugging lightly. And to him, it genuinely was.
"When the Empire started the riots, it brought back a lot of bad memories for him," she still tried to explain. "He's scared of what happens now that Lung is gone. He's even thinking of closing the shop for a bit… maybe leaving the city if things get bad."
"I understand, Ayame," Emiya said gently, offering a reassuring smile so she'd know he wasn't upset. "Believe me, I'm familiar with regrets. Sorry for dragging such a heavy topic into your day."
"You don't need to apologize, Danvers-kun. Father did that himself." Ayame's voice softened, then faltered. She reached into her apron and drew out a few worn bills.
"Here. I'm sorry I didn't notice he was shortchanging you. This should make up for today."
"Ichirou will scold you for that," Emiya said.
"He watched me take it," she admitted. "And didn't say anything. He actually really likes you, you know? That's why he shouted. He doesn't want you getting hurt. You really should be more careful."
"Don't you start," he groaned.
"Please, Danvers-kun," she pleaded. "The ABB will start grabbing more boys to build strength if they want to beat back the Empire. You're old enough."
The way she said it...
It was more weary and resigned than disgusted. Like a mother talking about an army draft and not a gang forcing people into its ranks.
"Is the PRT really so useless that you have to rely on the ABB to this extent?" Emiya couldn't help but ask.
Ayame shook her head.
"They aren't useless. They will come if you call. It's just… people prefer not to. If the ABB finds out you talked to the heroes, they start watching you in case you are a snitch. That never ends well. And otou-san's right about the response time and Lung and Oni Lee being much closer. If the PRT can't get rid of them, we can at least take advantage, right?"
"Right," he sighed. "Anyway, keep the money. You'll need it if you want to get out."
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it and asked instead, "If I keep the money… will you stop coming to the market?"
"No."
"Please, Danvers-kun. Just for a little while. Until things cool down. You can't help people if you let yourself get killed."
"I'm not—" He stopped short as she pressed the bills against his chest, firmly, insistently.
He looked her in the eyes and immediately recognized that there was no winning this.
"…Fine. I'll work somewhere else for a week or two."
Ayame's smile bloomed with relief.
"Thank you, Danvers-kun. Really. You've helped so many people here. Jasmine-chan is my friend, and because of you, she won't have to be sent to the brothel. You saved her."
She left and all Emiya could do was to stand there and grind his teeth.
Earlier that day, he had stood over Lung's unconscious form, deliberating whether to kill the man. It... reflexive almost. A professional habit. As much as he didn't care for the circus, Lung was a problem, and Emiya had spent eternity solving problems in the simplest, most final way.
But now he was left to wonder if he shouldn't hope for the man to escape instead.
The reality wasn't foreign to Emiya. He'd walked through villages that bent the knee to warlords for safety, places where protection was bought with blood and obedience. Where people clung to a lesser evil to survive the greater one, if only just.
But that was Sudan, Iraq, Libya and other war-torn places where warlords ruled. Africa and the Middle East.
But here—here—in the heart of an American city?
One of the supposedly most prosperous nations on Earth?
What the hell was the PRT doing?
Kirei had once implied that Emiya Shirou wished for human suffering. That if one's purpose in life was to save others, then suffering itself became the fuel of that purpose. The implication was clear.
At the time, it had caused a wave of indignation in his younger self, followed by immediate rejection. In truth though, it was nothing more than a thought exercise Kirei used to needle him. After all, Emiya Shirou would never run out of human suffering. Not in his life, and not after.
The more pressing issue was this: it was impossible to save everyone.
And it wasn't a matter of reach. If one person held a gun to another's head, you couldn't save both.
He always understood that. As far back as Kiritsugu's final days, Emiya Shirou understood that contradiction in his ideal. He was simply forced to accept it and stubbornly move forward despite it.
Because in the end, killing had saved people. To hold onto his ideal, Emiya Shirou had to stain his hands. He had started with Kirei and never stopped since.
And yet he had searched, relentlessly, desperately, for a way to save everyone. To be a savior without becoming an executioner.
It wasn't possible.
He had a whole litany of issues with the PRT's heroes— some rooted in his own issues—but one question had never crossed his mind:
How did they confront the contradiction that had defined his very existence?
And the answer was: They didn't.
They danced around it. No one had to die. Take the gun, but spare the wielder. Send them to prison.
...Only it was a revolving door. Hookwolf escaped and everyone was disappointed but not really surprised. No one honestly believed the Empire capes would rot behind bars forever, because villains were given multiple opportunities to escape before being sent to the truly inescapable prison.
As long as everyone played by the rules, respected secret identities and at least tried not to kill other parahumans... the system would kindly return the gun to the wielder's hand.
Emiya struggled to put it into words. It was as if Kirei had been right, and misery was the point. It wasn't just about not killing anyone; it went a step further.
Take the gun away, but throw it back immediately. Repeat the cycle. Save the victim again. And again. And again.
A sick performance staged for the sake of the actors, and as long as no one dies on the stage, you are free to shoot the audience.
A grotesque, debased parody of Emiya Shirou's ideal.
Tanya explained it in terms of the bigger picture. The force disparity. The Endbringer Truce. Pragmatism. And Emiya could see the point.
But the fact that the heroes who styled themselves as Allies of Justice didn't even flinch at the contradiction, didn't wrestle with it, didn't see it...
They lived the bright, untarnished dream, but did they truly save anyone?
Meanwhile, Emiya sold his soul, because he wanted to saveeveryone.
He stared down the road where Ayame had disappeared into ABB turf, then slowly pivoted his gaze south, toward the Empire's territory.
For a moment, he could almost hear the rattling of gears.
"Does it feel good? Just a little?"
Then it passed.
Emiya shook his head.
What was he even thinking? He had already walked down that path. Where had it ended? Hell of his own making.
No. Enough of this, Emiya thought as he started walking back to the HQ.
He was running on no sleep, and it made his thoughts muddy.
Ichirou... Ichirou was right. He had someone depending on him. He could not afford being self-destructive. Could not afford dragging someone else down with him.
Those ideals were dead.
Emiya Shirou was dead.
One day, he will never have existed.
A/N
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