Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Hell's Desire ( Chapter 17 )

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

AN: I will be slow in posting the next bit, as the setup I’ve made requires that I basically post the next four chapters at once.  It will make sense when you see it.  Until then, happy reading.


Escaping Fate
Chapter 13
Hell’s Desire


We had to wait until nightfall to get back home, since dragging my broken and bleeding body in the open would warrant questions from the average passerby.  Tohsaka somehow warded Issei’s family and the monks away from our position as we waited, and after a quick examination of Yumi, Caren took off after the demon.
With my body out of od, I dozed uncomfortably for minutes at a time, until some jabbing pain would wake me and I’d have to shift to find a more comfortable position.  Finally, by the time the sun was setting, Tohsaka had managed to heal me just enough that the blades piercing my body receded on their own, though it still felt like I was laying on a bed of needles.  Somehow, it was decided that Tohsaka would help carry Yumi back home—as Yumi seemed likewise exhausted and sore—while Sakura hefted one of my arms around her shoulders so she could help me move like we were in a three-legged race.
It was full-blown nighttime when we made it back, and by then I was feeling more generally alert and awake as my body stopped screaming at me for the pain I had inflicted on it.  We got inside; Tohsaka took Yumi to her room to rest and then dragged me into her room to wrap bandages about my arms, which had taken the blunt of my blade-skewering.
“Though you still heal faster than the average person,” Tohsaka said.  Every once in a while, she took delight in jabbing a particularly sensitive wound, and I wasn’t exactly sure why other than a sadistic default in her head.  “Maybe all that time with Saber’s scabbard in your body left you with lingering blessings from the faeries.”
“Then I’ll blame them that I’ve not grown any taller,” I complained.  “I’ll be stuck in a teenage body for the rest of my life too.”
The ointment that Tohsaka put on her bandages really alleviated the remaining pain, and I felt much better by the time I’d changed clothes and made my way back to the living room.  There, I could hear and smell something sizzling and I was reminded that I had not eaten since breakfast.
Sakura came from the kitchen and brought stir-fry with her.  While she distributed the plates, Yumi crept out, looking extremely timid.
“How are you feeling?” Tohsaka asked when she spotted the girl.
Yumi slowly sidled up next to me when it was clear she wasn’t about to get scolded, and I put my arm around her shoulders.  She had never fully acted out in any fashion in the entire year she had lived here, so my assumption was she only ever had her time in the orphanage to compare this situation to.  “Strange,” she said, looking blankly at the plate Sakura put before her.
“Do you remember anything?” I asked.
Her expression fell from blank to depressed; an outsider might not notice, but at least I was familiar enough with it that I could see.  I’m sure it was the same for Tohsaka and Sakura as well.
“This wasn’t your fault or anything,” Sakura said.
Yumi looked up at Tohsaka.  “Were…the people at school alright?”
I’m not quite certain why she looked to Tohsaka, though my guess was she figured Tohsaka would be the bluntest about it.  Either that or she realized that any attempt Tohsaka managed at fudging the truth tended to exhibit very clear symptoms of you’ve-said-too-much.  “Four of your classmates are going to be checked out at the hospital.  Caren Ortensia said that she already spoke with people and used something to clear anyone’s specific memories about your direct involvement.”
“Um,” Sakura said.  “Hoshino-kun left a message on the phone; I checked when you were bandaging senpai up.”  She looked a little nervous.  “He clearly saw everything and it doesn’t seem Ortensia-san got to him, probably because he’s not in her class.  He was worried about Yumi-chan.”
Tohsaka frowned and Yumi looked like she wanted to crawl under the table, never to return.  I tried giving Tohsaka the cut-off signal from behind Yumi’s shoulder, but she went on to say, “I guess I’ll get to him later.”  When Yumi wilted further at those rather villainous words, Tohsaka caught herself and slapped her hand over her face.  “I mean, uhh…”
“Regardless,” Sakura said, trying to distract from her sister’s slip by distributing the food, “Fujimura-sensei also called and let us know that school would be out for the remainder of the week until they investigate what occurred and make sure it wasn’t some kind of contamination or leak of some sort.  You do not have to concern yourself until then.  Now, everyone needs to eat.”
“But still,” Tohsaka said, “if that boy says any—”
The table shuddered slightly, the tea Sakura had set up sloshing around.  Tohsaka jumped in place and then turned an incredulous eye on her sister.
I did too.  How Sakura could lash out from under a Japanese table from seiza position* without looking like she had done anything twisted my brain.


Though I was still running pretty low on prana and energy in general, I felt way too wired to even think about sleep for a while, and with Yumi still fretting over what had occurred, we all plopped down in front of the television and watched a punishment game challenge show.
“I pray to the lord that whoever invented this show should seek repentance.”
My wired-nerves caused me to jump at Caren’s voice; thankfully, Sakura and Tohsaka both managed to keep their cool, though Sakura looked a little nervous at Caren’s reappearance.  The priestess stood there, calmly, as if she hadn’t just entered my home without permission.  “I thought you were going after that thing?” I blurted.
Caren smiled at me.  “Oh, I’m fine, thank you, no need to be concerned for my wellbeing or why I have come.”  She grasped her hands before her chest as if in prayer.  “Lord almighty, please ignore this child’s uncouth tongue, for he knows not what he says…ever.”
Sakura hit the power on the remote and everyone turned to regard the priestess in earnest, motioning for her to sit at the table as we crowded around.  “Are you alright?” I asked, though I thought it was a fairly stupid question.  She still looked fine and even the marks on her hand were gone.
“The demon has thus far eluded me, so I believed it best to come here and see if I could understand its reasoning better,” Caren said.  
“I’m not sure—” Sakura began.
“I am not either,” Caren said, nodding.  “But this is a very important concern, and it may in fact return in an attempt to reattach to your young one here.  I would prefer to wring it out now, so I need not have Emiya glare and throw daggers my way once more.”
I tried very hard not to, but was probably doing that very thing right now.
The glaring, anyway.
“Yumi,” Caren started, staring at the girl.  It was actually an odd thing, now that I looked at it, since Yumi and Caren’s hair was of the same color and style, they looked a fair amount alike.  Though I could never quite imagine Yumi smiling in the same unshakable way Caren did.  “Do you know why a demon came to you?”
Yumi looked down and to one side, but nodded.
That surprised me a little.  I always thought that demon possession was a random occurrence.  Though I knew even less on the matter than Dead Apostles.
“It’s the others inside me,” Yumi said.
Everyone, myself included, looked at her perplexedly.  
“They wished for it,” Yumi continued.


The shadow fled the temple, fled to safety.
Fled to the one place it could sense, the one place that it could understand.
The mansion was old, Western-styled, and quiet.  No semblance of life perpetuated it and nobody seemed to care.
In the shadows of the mansion, the shadow dove.
It dug deep into the earth and swept into the crevices of the once-mighty manor.  The screams of release shuddering through the shadow’s body resonated with the screams of release still felt within the walls of this place.  The shadow could sense through time the pain suffered here, it could smell the tears of the little girl that cried here, it could feel the wishes whispered in the darkness.
Wishes for a release from the torment.
Wishes for the power of a magus.
Wishes for life unending.
The house of Matou.


This is what it is to be Zouken Matou:
It writhed in the pit, a shadow of what it once was.  The worms shuddered and crawled and undulated about one another, in torment and agony, hating that which brought it to its knees.
Rin Tohsaka and her family name, for thwarting his every move.
Illyasviel von Einsbern, for looking down upon him like she was Justica.
Sakura, for failing to be his tool.
Shirou Emiya, for stealing it all.
The mass screams and rages, but nothing comes of it, as its power has long since vanished, no more prana to consume, no more form to be taken.  This shadow is a shadow of itself, no longer anything but an accumulation of lost desire and misguided passion.
It shudders alone in the darkness, unable to live, unable to die.


So when the shadow came to the shadow:
One shadow feeding on the pains of many—
One shadow feeding on the pains of one—
In this place, where pain once echoed freely, and a little girl cried for release…
Shadow consumed shadow, to give the shadow a shape.



*Kneeling, with one’s rear seated over their ankles.  Superbly uncomfortable if you’re not used to it and even many Japanese can’t tolerate it for long.  Saber, Rin, and Sakura all sit in that position without fuss, though.  The anime shows Shirou mostly sitting cross-legged.


Converting /tmp/php5D5TwP to /dev/stdout