I sat there staring at the sun, with my reinforced eyes, for a while thinking to myself what a wonderful world it was. I was really distracting myself from thinking about the 18 men I gunned down last night, and the way their blood pooled on the ground.
I shiver, when I remember my dreams while asleep, of me wading into a lake of blood as hands from the water rise and turn into blades and gears of bones appear in the sky. I get the Heebee Jeebees just thinking about it, so I won't, which is unhealthy and why I'll address it later when I'm home.
I looked down and stopped reinforcing my eyes from the UV, as I addressed the elephant in the room, my awakening when it's morning and not the night. I do realize that it's my fault for staying out late at night for vigilantism and gaining battle experience instead of staying home. People have to understand, it gets so boring training all the time, it's not like SLA where the grind until story mode feels exciting. In this world, the best way to learn is through combat and experimentation.
I'm getting off track, I think it's time I remove the self-hypnosis and just let Shirou's memories bleed into me. I'm just scared about doing that because I don't want Shirou's mental health issues and goal to mess with who I am as a person. The self-hypnosis was a way to practice without worrying about human interaction, but also to separate Shirou's memories from mine so I stay who I am.
Without that disconnect, I might stop being me, and that is an existential crisis if I've ever seen one, but I can't be a coward forever. If I'm going to truly live in this world, I need to fully accept what I am and move on with my life.
I reinforce my legs and jump to the rooftop across and continue doing that until I see an alleyway, where I jump down, stop reinforcing my limbs, and signal for a taxi which I direct home. I tell the taxi to stop a block away from home, just in case anyone's around so they don't ask any questions.
Once I arrive home, I jump to the roof without reinforcement while admiring my physicality and run across the top. I see the storage shed up ahead and perform a masterful double front flip before landing into a roll and running straight into the shed.
I stop and close the shed door behind me and spot the circular array Irisviel used in Zero to absorb ambient mana from the Earth. I stripped down to nothing and activated my circuits to jumpstart the array and have it run again. I then lay down with my back to the array and closed my eyes, looking deep within myself, where I found Avalon surrounded by a field of green.
I looked at it, and using my innate understanding of it after having it in my body for so long, I connected Avalon to the ambient mana being absorbed by the array. This way, Avalon had a source of magical energy to heal me if UBW gets out of hand while I merge once more.
Once that's done, I go even further into my soul and find the wall of self-hypnosis that holds back all of Shirou's memories and experiences. I feel daunted by the sheer size and scared by what may happen if that tsunami of memories washes over me. I slow down, and take a few minutes to breathe in and out as I try to hopelessly conquer my fear.
Just when I'm about to fall into a panic attack, a gold light shines above me, washing me in gold as I calm down and feel a sense of peace. I look up to see Avalon shining bright in my protection, which I thank it for before cancelling the self-hypnosis and allowing the memories to enter me.
I awake to a sea of fire and destruction all where I look, nothing but devastation and dead bodies. I look behind me, only to see two auburn haired people covered in flames. I couldn't bear the sight and ran away, passing by so many others that called for help but I could not because I was too injured to risk myself.
I felt disgusted with myself and the black mud around me only added to my self-loathing and hate. I continued forward though, as my mo----- and fa------- sacrificed too much for me to die here and now. As I continued to walk, I felt parts of myself slip and die away so I could live, names of -------- and ------- who I met on holidays.
As I trudged forward, I saw children like me under the rubble screaming for their parents to help them as the fire chased them. I recognized a few of them, what were their names again? Ah, -------- and --------, we were great friends before the fire, I remember -----------------whi--------had------------mo---------d-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. I don't remember anything about them.
Shir-----I kept going until hi---------my body gave out and I lay there on the ground, looking up at the dreary sky, Emiya -faith / denial- playing in the background of my mind. As I lay there, raising h--------my hand in the sky, hoping that someone would find me, they did and the smile that man had as he thanked h------me for living. Sh--------I wish h-----I could smile like him one day.
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