Chapter 14: A Cruel Fate
That night, Shirou dreamed. And it was a brutal immersion, without reason or mercy, into a carousel of nightmares where only two constants existed: the suffering of Rin Tohsaka, and his own absolute powerlessness.
It wasn't a dream; it was a possession. His mind was torn out and thrown into a frigid void before the first image slammed into his senses with the force of a punch.
Suddenly, he was in a dark, damp place that smelled of wet earth and iron. He didn't recognize the site. The light was dim, but he saw her instantly. Rin, with her back to him, clutching a crystalline dagger that glowed with its own light in trembling hands. In front of her, a figure made of shifting, undulating shadows, from which only a long mane of white hair stood out, as pale as a specter's, floating in a nonexistent current of air.
— No!— Shirou wanted to scream, but his voice was the sound of a stone falling to the bottom of a well. Rin hesitated. He could see the tension in her shoulders, the struggle in the line of her neck. The figure of shadows and white hair didn't move. And then, from the floor at its feet, something rose. It wasn't a weapon; it was an extension of the darkness itself, a black stake with red veins like exposed blood vessels. It shot forward with unnatural speed.
The sound was the worst. A wet, deep "shluck", the sound of a body being pierced from side to side, followed by a short, dry gasp that stole the air from Shirou's own lungs. Rin arched, her eyes wide open, not with pain at first, but with pure, devastating surprise. She looked down to where the black, dripping tip of the stake had emerged just below her rib. Her mouth opened into a perfect oval of mute shock. Then, the crimson stain that began to spread across her blouse, first like a flower, then like a voracious ocean. The crystal dagger fell from her hand with an obscenely delicate clatter.
Shirou ran. Or his legs tried to run through a substance thick like molasses. Every step was agony.— RIN!— He roared from a burning chest. She collapsed to her knees, then onto her side. Her head hit the stone floor with a dull thud. Her eyes, those blue eyes full of intelligence and life, searched the void. They found Shirou's. And in them, for an infinite instant, there was no reproach, no fear. There was only a deep sadness, and something that resembled a farewell. Then, the light went out. Her gaze clouded over. Shirou fell beside her, his hands trying in vain to press the monstrous wound, but the warm, thick blood seeped between his fingers, painting them red. He felt the warmth leave her body, how her chest stopped moving. An animalistic, ragged scream was born in his throat.
The scream transformed into another sound, an external one. A sharp, continuous shriek of pure agony. The cave faded, replaced by the gloom of a temple. Rin was no longer lying on the floor. She hung suspended in the air, arms outstretched like a martyr, head lolling. At her feet, a hooded figure, a faceless silhouette, moved its fingers with the delicacy of a pianist.
It wasn't blood flowing from Rin now. It was her essence. Beneath her skin, her Magic Circuits glowed with a violent violet light, distorting, swelling like worms of light under tissue about to burst. Each pulse of light tore a new whimper, a new spasm from her. Her screams were no longer of physical pain, but of something worse: of spiritual violation, of feeling the very core of her being unwound and consumed. She sweated, trembled like a leaf in a storm.
— STOP!— Shirou roared, lunging at the hooded figure. He passed through her like through smoke, losing his balance and falling to his knees. He couldn't touch her. He couldn't do anything. He turned his head toward Rin. Her eyes were open, but they weren't seeing. Her mouth, slightly agape, let out a thread of saliva. A tremor ran through her entire body. Shirou saw her diminish. Not in size, but in presence. As if each flash of light stolen from her made her more translucent, more distant. The rage in him boiled, turning into a metallic taste in his mouth. He wanted to destroy, to kill, to reduce that figure to ashes, but he could only kneel and witness as Rin's vital spark dimmed, pulse by pulse, toward nothingness.
Nothingness didn't arrive. Instead, a large, strong, familiar hand appeared in Shirou's field of vision. It grabbed Rin by the neck and lifted her from the ground like a rag doll. The transition was so brutal Shirou felt nauseating vertigo.
Now they were in a luxurious, cold hall. And he recognized him instantly. Kirei Kotomine. The priest with the serene demeanor. The man who had set him on the path to her. Now he held Rin with one hand, while the other held a black Bible. Rin's face was congested, turning from intense red to a terrible purple. Her feet kicked in the air, each movement weaker than the last. A horrible sound, a hoarse, broken "glug-glug", came from her constricted throat. Her eyes, bloodshot, rolled in their sockets, seeking an exit, an explanation. They met Shirou's. And this time, the horror in them was pure, primal. There was no sadness, only the animal terror of someone who is dying and sees the witness of their death unable to act.
— KOTOMINE! LET HER GO!— Shirou's voice exploded, laden with a hatred he had never felt before. He ran toward them, fists clenched. Kirei didn't even blink. His dark, empty eyes settled on Shirou for a microsecond. And then, with monstrous calm, he squeezed a little harder.
The sound was small and definitive. A dry "crick", like that of a rotten branch. Rin's struggling ceased instantly. Her entire body went limp. Kirei opened his hand. Rin's body fell to the marble floor with a dull, heavy thud that echoed in Shirou's soul. There was no drama. Only the final sound of something precious smashing against the ground. Shirou collapsed beside her, his hands touching her cheek, still warm.— No, no, no, no...— He muttered, a useless litany.— Tohsaka, Rin, please, wake up— He shook her shoulder, gently at first, then with desperation. Her head moved with a terrifying limpness, no resistance. The rage, the pain, the powerlessness, fused in his chest into a ball of ice and fire. He looked up at Kirei, who observed them with the same expression with which he would contemplate an interesting experiment. Shirou opened his mouth to scream, to curse him, but…
… The scream drowned in absolute silence. He was no longer in the hall. He was in a gray, featureless place. And Rin was there, standing. With her eyes open. But it wasn't Rin. It was a statue of herself. Tubes and cables of a material that looked like polished bone were embedded in her wrists, the nape of her neck, her spine, connecting her to a wall that pulsed softly with a pale light. She wasn't breathing. She wasn't blinking. Only a solitary tear, fossilized on her cheek, spoke of the humanity that once was there. She was a battery. An emptied vessel. A reminder that there were fates worse than death, destinies where you were robbed even of the right to end.
Shirou approached, and this time he could touch her. He placed a hand on her cheek. It was cold, like porcelain. There was no reaction. Nothing. The emptiness emanating from her was more terrifying than any wound, any scream. This Rin didn't need him, didn't remember him, didn't exist for him. It was this image, that of a loss so total it didn't even leave a corpse to mourn, that broke something inside him.
Shirou Emiya awoke.
Not with a start, but with total paralysis. He lay in his futon, eyes open in the darkness of his room, fixed on the ceiling. He wasn't breathing. His body was a block of ice, taut like a cable about to snap. Slowly, as if it required a superhuman effort, air entered his lungs in a tremulous hiss.
Then, the trembling began. First in his hands, then in his arms, until his whole body was shaken by uncontrollable spasms. He sat up abruptly, brought his hands to his face and found them wet. They weren't tears from crying; it was the cold sweat of panic soaking his skin. He could still smell it. The metal of blood. The dampness of earth. The icy void of that gray room.
He staggered to his feet and made it to the bathroom just in time to vomit into the sink, nothing but bile and terror. Afterward, he leaned against the wall, sliding down to sit on the cold floor, hugging his knees. He looked at his hands, almost expecting to see them stained red. They were clean.
But the feeling didn't leave. The image of Rin's eyes going out, over and over, in an infinite loop of horrible endings, repeated in his mind. There was no logic. No message. Only pure, raw, inescapable horror. And a new, fierce feeling that began to melt the ice of his paralysis: a burning, impotent rage, directed at a fate that dared to show him those things, at a world that allowed them to happen to her, and above all, at his own being, which could only observe, paralyzed, again and again.
— No— He whispered, his voice rough from the screams that never left the dream. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.— No. No. No
He didn't know what those visions were. He didn't know why they had happened to him for as long as he could remember. But one thing was absolutely clear, carved into his being with the edge of the sharpest pain he had ever felt: never, never, would he allow a single one of those cruel images to become reality. The price of failure, he had just witnessed, was infinitely more painful than any suffering he could endure.
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Futón = Japanese bet