Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Bowman and Bow ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

AN: If you’re confused by the change in literary style from the prologue, I’m mimicking the format from the original visual novel.  Chapters are from Shirou’s first-person perspective; interludes from other main characters will also be first-person.  Secondary characters like in the prologue are from third-person limited.  I’ll attempt to maintain the terminology from the Mirror Moon translation of the game, but some things I just won’t be keeping, like seigi no mikata being called “superhero.”

This whole thing arose out of over-Nasuverse stimulation.  Between some good fanfiction reading, attending Sakura Con 2011 and meeting a bunch of other FSN fans, the excitement of Unlimited Blade Works having come out and the approach of Witch on the Holy Night, Carnival Phantasm and Fate/Zero is overwhelming.  This plot bunny started jumping around in my head without mercy.  Dammit, I should be working on my original stuff, not fanfiction!  Oh well.

I have not played hollow ataraxia as my Japanese is nowhere near the ability to read such a complex story, so my knowledge of Caren is fairly limited.  I felt like including her, though, so, there you have it.  I’m completely to blame for OOCness.


Escaping Fate
Chapter 1
Bowman and Bow


“Caren is here to pick them up,” Tohsaka said.
Sighing, I poked my head out of the bedroom and felt my lips involuntarily purse.  “Uh, could you take care of that?  She really gives me the creeps, you know.”
Rin Tohsaka stared back at me, hands on her hips in that same who-do-you-think-I-am pose that generally preceded a verbal beating directed at me.  “Would you man up for once and face her in earnest?  She honestly is not at all bad.”  The Tohsaka-smirk then followed, and though a good five meters separated us, the way she leaned in felt like she was somehow looming over me.  “And just what makes you think you can get me to do all the dirty work, anyway?  This was all your idea.”
When Tohsaka had returned this past weekend from her latest excursion to London, she had brought with her a rumor on “breakthrough research” that had her concerned; she had explained that such words often accompanied some form of tragedy or another, and that the source had supposedly been from a magus operating out of Japan.  Further asking around had discovered this Setsuka Yuushi and his orphanage outside Fuyuki City, not terribly far from the Einzbern mansion where we currently stood.  Tohsaka had looked into the orphanage, stating that mages in the past had used isolated locations to carry out experiments that would otherwise get them in trouble, and eventually found altered police records with a magus’s handprints all over it.
Ever since the Grail War’s end, the Einzberns had apparently decided to abandon their property as it was no use to them now that the Great Grail was out of their reach for good, and Illya had become the technical owner.  She had shown me around the place once, but ultimately the girl had no use for it either once she had settled in with Taiga.  Since Illya’s death, I had not returned to the place, though it still stood, and had eventually settled on it as a staging ground for our rescue mission since it was close to the orphanage and still maintained a boundary field.
When we had found the orphanage and the field surrounding it, the plan was simple: Tohsaka and Sakura would gather up the children and subdue any of the local workers, and I would wait for Yuushi to investigate the intrusion of his boundary field.  It had taken a bit of trial and error, but I eventually found the right sword to pierce the field, and it had apparently ripped the entire thing down instead of just creating a hole.  Not that I minded.
I did, however, mind dealing with that Church representative.  And the constant sexual harassment.  “Then…I’ll see if Sakura is willing to deal with her?”
Pushing past Tohsaka—who watched me with that annoying Cheshire cat expression—I went for the second floor landing and circled one of the back halls in an attempt to avoid the main foyer where Caren Ortensia waited to pounce like a lion on a wounded gazelle.  That woman seriously made me shiver, like she had killed me in a past life or something.
Sakura was still with the girl we had found inside the laboratory and I couldn’t blame her for it.  Although so small in comparison, the feeling one had upon venturing into that room and seeing the steadily bleeding form atop the table was like a vague taste of that horror flowing out of the Grail.  Looking at the girl up close had been like looking at all of man’s sins, since it took only the most terrible of them and shoved them in your face.
I’m not sure how much I liked the fact that Tohsaka had seemed more horrified by it than Sakura had.
We had taken the injured girl into one of the bedrooms to recover and Sakura had not left her side the entire time.  Although I had managed to keep the girl from dying and Tohsaka’s first aid had sealed the wounds, it was pretty clear that the girl’s wounds were beyond just the physical.  Some of the scars suggested she had been tortured for a long enough time for some to heal and talk from some of the kids still in the orphanage made it clear they thought she had been adopted three or four weeks ago.
Finding her had been like finding a medical research cadaver still alive.
I wonder if I looked like her, once upon a time…
I’m not sure what Illya had intended for the room we were using, but it was exactly what we needed.  With oak walls and a bedspread in dark blue, it had absolutely no resemblance to the laboratory we had found the girl in and would hopefully be a rest on her mind in that respect.  
Not surprisingly, the girl had not said a thing since we had found her, and she was silent as I entered the room.
Sakura was at the bedside, holding the girl’s hand—possibly the only part of her left undamaged by Yuushi’s work.  “Anything?”
Sakura shook her head.  Now a third year in high school, she looked every bit the senior idol.  It was fairly apparent now how much she resembled Tohsaka in that respect.  Actually, it was even more apparent in how fierce she could look when truly mad.  “I wish you had hit that man harder.”
The Church would be looking after Yuushi until a representative from the Clock Tower came to assess the case.  Until then, they had restrained him with a conceptual weapon and Tohsaka had been sure to strip him of any metallurgy he might be carrying.  His injuries were not bad, though, since I had purposely missed hitting him directly.
Even Sakura had seemed a little disappointed I hadn’t shot him.
But…that really wasn’t why I was here.
“Ortensia-san is here and rounding up everyone.  Do you think you could help her with the head count?  I’ll stay with this one until they’re ready to depart.”
Sakura looked surprised, then her head tilted.  “Can’t you do that, senpai?”
“I, uh, can…” of course, Sakura had never met Caren before.  Nor had Sakura seen Caren’s…oddness.  “I just can’t deal with the new overseer from the Church.  She treats me strangely.”
“You will stay here, then?” Sakura asked, though she was vacating her seat.
I nodded and sat where she had been.
Sakura brushed her hand along my arm, and she gave me a look that I had become quite familiar with in the last year.  Though it had taken me some months to come clean with my participation in the Grail War with her and explained who Saber was, Sakura had been able to figure out everything to begin with and had realized what it really meant when I had told her and Fuji-nee that Saber had returned home.  Ever since, her silent touches had always sought to reaffirm that she was in fact still here to support me, and although I never openly acknowledged them, it was not unappreciated.
They had become nearly second nature since Illya had passed on.
Actually, there was an additional sadness to it ever since.  Though her relationship with Illya had not been as openly vocal and energetic as Fuji-nee’s was, Sakura had clearly come to like Illya.  Her loss probably affected Sakura more than she would openly admit and I wondered if that influenced how she felt about this victim before us.
Well, it was better to think about that than the various other reasons Sakura had to feel sympathetic to such a terrible ordeal.
“Just be sure to watch carefully,” Sakura said.  “She’s been staring off at nothing for a while now.”
“Yeah.”
The girl really had been a sight, more like the raw meat on a butcher’s block than a living person.  Tohsaka said that Yuushi’s research had something to do with the magical circuit, meaning that what appeared physically was hardly touching the surface.
If the pain was like what I was doing when first training my magical circuit, I can’t begin to imagine what it was like to have it inflicted upon you by another.  At the very least, I knew what to expect for myself.
We weren’t even sure if this girl still had the mental capacity to live, how pained she looked.
And I didn’t know to what extent my Tracing had helped.  I knew what it felt like for me, but I couldn’t be sure how much my time with Saber had influenced how I associated perfection with all things related to Saber.  I had the feeling of being freed from Angra Mainyu to base it on, but going from negative infinity to positive infinity in a single moment probably skews how I perceive the state of euphoria.
The girl turned her head slightly and stared at me.  Despite the intensity, it was not unnerving like it probably should have been, though that may be due to the fact that she now actually looked like a girl and less like Sadako Yamamura about to crawl out of my television.
She watched me without blinking for a long while.  I thought maybe she was waiting for me to pull out a scalpel and continue her torture.  But then she surprised me.  “Bow,” she said, her voice scratchy.
I thought about when I had first entered the lab where we found her and could not remember if I still had the Traced bow in hand at the time.  It might take some explaining why some random guy with a bow was one of those responsible for rescuing her…
Oh.
Or I’m an idiot.  
“Your name is Yumi?” I asked.*
Her head moved faintly with a nod.
Sakura had said she had not reacted much, and in the hours while we waited for word from the Church I had not seen her do anything but lay quietly wherever we put her.  I was glad to see she still had command of her mind enough to communicate, though why to me and not someone generally more approachable like Sakura confused me.
“I’m Shirou,” I said to her.
She nodded again, very slowly.
“I know it must hurt a lot, but you’ll being picked up by members of a local church in a little bit.  Another short trip and you should be able to rest all you want.”
Yumi’s eyes drooped.  “Another orphanage?”
I hadn’t thought about it like that, but it would essentially be the same as before for her.  Just, without the torture.
“Yeah.  The people at the church aren’t going to hurt you though,” I said with confidence.  Caren may be odd, but she most definitely wasn’t like Kotomine.  Her evil side was certainly plain to see…whenever men were around, anyway.  “Everyone there is nice.”
It did make me think, though, of what that would be like.  I’m not sure anyone could quite go back to their normal life after something like this.  Seeing something so selfish and terrifying behind the actions of one single person…how could you trust others after that?  At least, without getting to know them first.
I thought of my own rescue over ten years ago and the other orphans that had survived.  Though now resting beyond the pain of Kotomine and Gilgamesh, I know that their lives would still have been a hardship had they even been given a good chance.  My life…at least I was given choices.  Even if they were never a choice to begin with for me.
Standing up, I said, “I’ll be right back.  I need to go talk to someone.”
I guess, maybe, I liked trying to pick up strays.  
The main hall foyer still looked beat up; Illya had not been inclined to fix it after the damage sustained in the battle between Berserker and Archer.  It worked in our favor, though, since the other kids from Yuushi’s orphanage were less inclined to think about why they were all suddenly being disrupted of their everyday activities and now had a mysterious ruin to look around.  I suppose if that magus could be thanked for anything, it was that he decided to carry out his experiments one at a time rather than all at once.  Tohsaka had mentioned other magi that were prone to doing some fairly terrible things on a scale large enough that if not dealt with by the Association, it was believed the Counter Force had actually appeared to wipe them out.
Or, you know, me.
But not me.  Ugh, I’m making my own head hurt.
Sakura was already grouping kids together in pairs to keep them all orderly.  Tohsaka silently watched from the side, though she glanced my way when I descended the stairs and raised an eyebrow.  I couldn’t actually find Caren amidst the masses—
“Kya!”
Which should have been a warning sign to begin with.
Pulling my ear hard enough to twirl me around a hundred and eighty degrees, Caren Ortensia’s white hair and black dress flew into view.  She smiled at me like she was prodding a baby to coo.  “You finally show yourself, young man.”
She let go and I clutched my head.  In another world, she could probably sneak up and kill me no matter what I did.  “Ortensia-san, could you please not do that for a greeting?  Won’t a handshake do?”
Smiling, Caren motioned up the stairs.  “So, am I correct in assuming you are here to request something?”
Completely ignoring my plea.  And perfectly seeing through my desires.
I really can’t stand her, even if she is cute.
Sakura and Tohsaka converged on us; Sakura looked curious, while Rin looked like she knew what was coming.  I could only be glad the latter did not have her hand in her face, like it was a stupid idea.
“Yeah, the girl we found, Yumi, I’m not sure she’d readjust so well if we just sent her right back with the others.  If nothing else, there’d be questions,” I said.
Tohsaka and Caren both nodded, probably because they had already come to the same conclusion.  Sakura looked contemplative, and could probably see where this was going.
“So, what do you plan on doing, Shirou Emiya?” Caren sing-songed my name in a manner suspiciously similar to her predecessor.  “Will the mere bowman be taking on a new bow?”
It’s like she knows how stupid I am down to how I could mix up a name, dammit.  Praise be to all higher powers that Tohsaka isn’t that…well, never mind.
“Well, it would be alright for her to stay unless I hear some objections?” I looked at Sakura and Tohsaka.  I didn’t quite understand how it came to be myself, but even though both still had full houses all to themselves, both pretty much lived at my place now.  Sakura kept the Matou home I think for appearances—she really hated that place otherwise—and Tohsaka, when she wasn’t traveling or in London, generally stayed with us.  We were adults now, and Fuji-nee had little to argue with in that case.
Plus, you know, Tohsaka…
“I couldn’t say no after seeing her like that,” Sakura said.  I wasn’t sure what she was thinking about, though Illya was probably a good guess.
Tohsaka shrugged.  “It really isn’t my place to say.”
“Well, you do live with us,” I told her point-blank.  “Official or not, I’m not going to force you to live with a situation you don’t want.”
Tohsaka’s eyes widened and for a split second I thought I might have seen a blush, but she waved off any further reaction.  “W-well, anyway, I don’t have a problem with it.  Really.”
Wait, must relish in ambushing Tohsaka.  They’re such rare moments.
Alright.
“Then, do you think you could make the arrangements?” I asked Caren.  “I’m not really sure what the legal proceeding is here.”
Caren put a hand over her mouth and shook with laughter.  “You are a magus, Shirou Emiya.  Legal proceedings can be overwritten, as you might have noticed.”
“Well, not that good a magus,” I said.  “I certainly can’t do something so skillful.”  I looked to Tohsaka again.
She stared back at me, until she realized why I was singling her out.  “Oh, and I suppose I’m doing all the work again?”
“You are the one always on top,” I said absently.
Sakura immediately took a step back.
Er…
Oh.
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Tohsaka screamed, now in my face and somehow managing to transmute her teeth into a chainsaw.
“I meant on top of things, things!”


Home.
It was after dark by the time we settled in, though I had to open doors and set a fan out to chase away the humid warmth inside.  Summer was in full swing and even with the sun down, the heat was still fairly oppressive.
Sakura readied the room next to hers for Yumi, while Tohsaka and I argued over who would be making dinner—really, just an extension on the previous argument about who was going to get all the documents in order.  Caren had taken Yumi with the others to make sure her wounds would heal first before we would go pick her up in the morning.
“I’ll cook,” I said to Tohsaka.  “You need to come up with an explanation to Fuji-nee once she returns from her sabbatical.”
“Again, why am I responsible for that?”
I grinned at her.  “Nobody is nearly smart enough to handle it with the grace you do.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t make me happy when it comes from you.”
Not that it was much, but, maybe a taste of what you put me through.  Devil woman.
We ate slowly, talking about what to do now that we would have an additional person in the house.  Yumi was apparently fourteen years old, so she would have to be enrolled in high school pretty soon, and depending on how up to it she was, we thought we could swing it past Fuji-nee to pull strings to get her into Homuraba.
It was nice to have people in high places.  Or Fuji-nee.
“We should also get this out of the way now, since it is sure to come up,” Tohsaka said after she finished her meal.  “How are you going to handle being a magus with her?”
I blinked.  “Uh…come again?”
Tohsaka crossed her arms.  “You’re a practicing magus and a lot of your time is spent perfecting what we know of your skills so far.  You forget that Illya was a magus herself, so it wasn’t necessary to hide it from her, and I think you’ve become comfortable now with the fact that Sakura is one as well.”
I glanced at Sakura, who blushed at the scrutiny.  She always tried to draw attention away from that fact, but every once in a while she would make observations about how I operated my own magic that revealed how much longer she had lived with it.  Even if she did not practice herself, Sakura was a magus far and away from what I could ever achieve.
“I had assumed that with how Yuushi was pulling off his experiments, we couldn’t exactly hide from Yumi what was going on.  She had to have some suspicion anyway.  I thought it would, you know, kind of come out naturally as she became curious.”
“Did it come naturally when your father explained it to you?” Tohsaka asked.
Well…now that she mentions it.  “I guess not.  He just randomly told me one day.  But I didn’t know until the Grail War began that the fire was anything more than some terrible accident or natural disaster.  I kind of doubt anyone could explain away what Yuushi did, even if the excuse is ‘serial killer’ or something like that.”
“So, no hiding it from her?  Or do you think you’ll just tell her up front?”
Sakura raised her hand.  I mean, like you might in a classroom.  Probably because Tohsaka sounded like a lecturer from school when she asked questions like this.  “Although I don’t think we should tell her right away and give her time to adjust, it probably would be better sooner than later.  It will clear up any chances for miscommunication later on.”
Tohsaka flushed a little at that, and I smiled.  While it had taken the two of them some time—though with Shinji gone and Zouken Matou nowhere to be found, there were fewer hurdles to overcome—the two of them had slowly started to repair their relationship.  Every once in a while Sakura would say something innocuous like this that made Tohsaka trip up, clearly a thought shared between the two of them that neither had voiced.  I’m not really sure of the specifics, but it was all the clearer why Sakura had always seemed to be a little jealous of the school’s admiration of Tohsaka.  
“That sounds about right,” I said.  And while I trusted Tohsaka implicitly with her observations and her skills as a magus, I think even Tohsaka felt she was a little deficient in empathizing with the average person.  Sakura, on the other hand, tended to be a little more accurate in guessing one’s emotional reactions.
Of course, the only reason Tohsaka was slow on the uptake there was because I think her own emotional reactions surprised her more often than not.
“Then we’ll do it that way,” Tohsaka said, like she was passing judgment and the decision was final.  I shook my head and started taking dishes into the kitchen.
If I wasn’t sure how it came to be that Tohsaka and Sakura started living with me, I’m extremely not sure how Tohsaka became the father of the household.  
…Or how I had become the mother, for that matter.


Tohsaka and I went to the church in the morning; though there was a week left of summer break, Sakura had club activities at school to oversee and could not go with us.
The church was unchanged since the war, at least on the outside.  After the plottings of Kotomine were revealed, the basement had been cleansed and the dying souls there were laid to rest.  Although I had seen the empty room for myself, I still could not get over the sense of dread I felt when I caught sight of the top of the hill.
I think Caren had it turned into a storeroom for an herb garden she now maintained in the back.  Maybe her definition of irony?
We did not have to enter the church proper, though, upon arrival; Caren waited with Yumi right out front—no doubt predicting that I would be here right on time—and she had with her a small satchel.  “You should try brewing tea out of this,” Caren said, handing it to me.  “It’ll help with any aches from injury.”
Though she said it clearly in reference to Yumi, I had no doubt she was jabbing at me.  Well, fine.  When you impale yourself from the inside out automatically when danger is about, you let me know.
“She doesn’t have anything else?” Tohsaka asked.
I looked at her funny.
“She is officially adopted and moved away from the orphanage records,” Caren said.  “All of her possessions were probably destroyed then.”
I regarded Yumi carefully.  It was fairly amazing that she was already moving on her own power, even if her wounds had healed.  I think anybody else would be jumping at shadows and hiding in the closet after what she suffered.  It was apparent, though, that the injuries were going to have long-term repercussions: I could make out a couple of scars where her neck met her collar and the very roots of her hair were starting to turn cat-whisker white.  Her nervous system must still be going haywire too.
I said, “We could go shopping for her once we’ve settled in,” partially addressing the girl before me in hopes she would respond.
It was barely perceptible, but she nodded at my words.
“Well then!” Caren said, grinning.  “Good luck to you.  Let me know if you need…anything.”  She added the last bit with a breathy tone.
I think Tohsaka’s eyebrow twitched.
As we walked back home, I considered calling a taxi or suggesting the bus, since I wasn’t sure how good a long walk would be for Yumi.  But when I reached for my phone, the girl’s hand came up and took mine, like, well, a child to their parent.
I’m not sure why, but I felt the heat rise in my face.
Tohsaka laughed.
Yumi then reached to take her hand as well.
Tohsaka stopped laughing and stared like a deer-in-headlights.
Yeah, take that.
“So, um, how do you spell your name?” Tohsaka stuttered, trying to cover up her awkward reaction.  Brilliant maneuver, captain.
“’Bow’ and ‘beautiful,’” Yumi said, her voice slightly stronger than yesterday.
Tohsaka’s eyes tracked back up at me, and although her tone still had a sense of sarcasm to it, it was one of the few genuine smiles she occasionally gave me.  “That’s a wonderful name.”

*Yumi’s name is ‹|”ü which literally means “beautiful bow.”  The first kanji can itself be read Yumi and is the kanji for bow.  Her name is also a homonym for a variety of very fitting words regarding her place in this story.  I loves me my Japanese puns.
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