Bab 72: Chapter 69: A Brother`s Love

From his experience, shirou felt that his body was giving up he slowly felt himself dying and it was a different experience than usual. He always felt a chilling fear on his spine when dying paralysing him but today he didn't sense that, well when your heart is tearing you apart from the inside the pain of the body becomes nothing. The girl bowed lower as she looked at him with a spine-chilling grin and said

"No no, I can't let you die this easily. I have to hurt you more so that you can understand how wonderful your life till now was."

Holding his skull with her cold spine spine-chilling fingertips she used magical energy and shirou felt his body disappear as he inhaled the scent of snow and formalin. As his vision faded she said

"Fufu. I'll turn you into an ugly doll that can't even die. Onii-chan is going to take Kiritsugu's place from now on."

...

Shirou was back into the void which was empty no more but rather was filled with fire everywhere, as he took in the view of the world the space twisted and turned again and he was back in his future self's body. This time he was able to feel the feeble magical energy flowing through him, this reminded him of the time when kiritsugu had him exercise with circuits like these to train them. The thoughts of the man sent needles stabbing into his heart again but this time he had accepted a little more that the man was dead and focused on the last talk they had.

Shirou looked around himself and found that it was a forest filled with mist, he felt as if his senses were all over the place and the sense of direction was constantly changing. Running through all his knowledge he understood that it was a bounded field, a ward set with effects of concealment and misdirection as well as illusion through the fog spread here. From his knowledge of the previous war, this was likely the Einzbern forest the ward surrounding the Einzbern castle.

He then looked at his companions and found Rin and Artoria. As they were walking away they suddenly sensed danger and jumped back, Saber confronted Berserker and was sent flying away like a ragdoll. Bersker caught Rin instead of going after saber and this made Shirou`s heart jump to his throat as the giant held the girl like a toy.

Saber rushed towards the giant with a battle cry, as she fought with him the giant just parried her with a single hand and swung rin around. Saber frustrated took distance from the giant and her cover of air dissipated revealing her sword. Mana began gatherings around the legendary sword in waves, shirou thanked his future self for at least being smart enough to keep his eyes open in the bright light of the noble phantasm being released.

He quickly compared this Excalibur to the other uses he had seen, he was distracting himself through these seemingly unnecessary actions so that his emotions rampaging inside himself could be suppressed. Various questions bouncing inside his head made it so that he wished he could give up everything and blackout. Artoria`s blade begins glowing in a bright golden glow that might appear legendary to other people appeared dim to his eyes.

He had seen the sword being used at full power and this blow was like a candle compared to a flamethrower. The holy sword of legends Excalibur burns the area around it and scorches the earth around it to cinders. As soon as the giant saw the sword being swung towards him he threw away Rin whom he was slowly squeezing and rushed towards the dragon king. In his mad dash, he was covered in the golden beam of light.

Along with Saber`s scream of "Ex–Caliber" and the roars of the mad titan, the light disappeared, it revealed artoria on her knees with her silver armour slowly disappearing into light particles and her body shivering as she panted. The giant stood tall without any sign of damage, Illya laughed at this and her exposed body parts were covered in red lines that looked like a command seal. Shirou had guessed it to be some form of combined magic circuit, magic crest and command seal.

Gone was the innocent girl, with her circuits active she looked like a demonic imp and he action provided evidence of this as she said

"That's it, Saber. Even with the holy sword this amount of magical energy is not enough to defeat Bersker."

As her body faded Saber glared at Bersker from her prone position and Illya criticised

"Fufu, it must have been disappointing for you too, Berserker. If Saber's magical energy had been full, you would have been able to die!"

The titan roared with rage and swung his sword at the fading woman and smashed her body multiple times till it had become a paste. Tonight it was the 3rd person who died for him in front of him, all because he was weak. disregarding the pulp of meat that was artoria Iliya walked towards shirou and said

"This is it. So what will you do, Onii-chan? Will you try to run away or will you quietly let me kill you?" clapping her hands together in an innocent gesture she continued with bright eyes

"Oh yeah! let's say if you'll let me kill you, I can let Rin go."

Shirou looked at her filled with hope and relief as according to him his sister was not too far gone. His body gave up as if giving in to her and accepting the offer as he looked at the oil of meat and earth that used to be saber and his stomach twisted with futile emotions. Laughing merrily while covered in the reddish glow of the seals with her voice echoing in the eerie forest she ordered

"Hee hee—---That`s it, you are a good boy Shirou. Bring him to me, Berserker. Take his legs away first so he won't be able to run away."

With the swing of the sword, his lower half disappears and as he dies of blood loss and crushed organs the giant moves left and stomped on the already broken Rin Tohsaka, effectively crushing her and ending her life. Tears slid down his eyes, this time the body and mind were in sync and they shed tears and his mind faded.

Alongside the tears, the hesitation and some fragments of his humanity were shed. His last promise to his father was clear in his mind as it echoed

<"I will definitely make sure our family is united">

He had already failed before he started, his father was dead, and the only remaining member his sister was already too far gone to be reunited with him. Countering these he thought

As he thought it through numerous thoughts surfaced in his mind that would have horrified him a mere day ago but now these intrusive thoughts appeared as genuine methods. Suddenly he had a eureka moment

<Power, all of the times she killed me when she was celebrating her self-imposed superiority. If I— if I kill her servant and then...destroy all her magic circuits….then she will have no choice but to listen to me>

< Don't worry Iliya, brother is coming to save you, just hold on everything will be fine.>

During these thoughts, he had completely missed the transition from the vision to his soul world and then to reality. After he took his oath under the moonlight rin`s death cycled through his mind nearly crushing him under the weight of panic. This prompted him to move his body and then came the stinging pain from the swords perforating him. His kimono was already in tatters and stained with blood, following his father he had taken up wearing a simple kimono in the house sometimes. Mostly he did it when he worked on forging, the dress covered him whole and he just had to wear a leather apron for safety over it.

Staggering over to the rack he put on a thick black overcoat, which covered the small blades sticking out of him and taking up his sword he dashed towards the entrance.

(A/N: the poor boy is getting tortured enough. Mind of steel no we are going on a heart of steel route. Fucking low iq clones are doing all kinds of dumb shit always. Let's see who kidnaps whom now little murder Loli. Anyway, 3 important hints were given in this and the previous chapter how many of them did you find?