In the dream, there was no Archer, nor was there Emiya Shirou.
There was only that irritating hospital room.
The clarity of the dream was terrifyingly high.
She could even see the fine fuzz on that man’s face.
In the dream, she could not move.
It was not due to being bound by magecraft, but rather being pinned to the spot by a certain gaze.
That man named Shinji was leaning casually against the hospital bed, staring at her with an aggressive gaze she had never seen before.
Then, that face leaned in close.
It was cold, dry, and carried a hint of irresistible force.
The fleeting touch from reality was infinitely prolonged in the dream.
She felt the tip of his tongue forcefully pry open her defenses, and that scent, carrying the stench of scum, instantly filled her mouth.
But what made her feel the most shame and fear was that, in that moment in the dream, she still did not push him away.
Her body was burning, her heart was racing, and some instinct belonging to a Magus, a pursuit of pleasure that she had always suppressed under her rationality, had actually resonated shamefully at that moment.
“I like this very much.”
At the end of the dream, that voice whispered in her ear, carrying that annoying, all-controlling smile.
Then the scene shifted abruptly, turning into that huge stage.
Shinji, under the spotlight, wearing that dark blue suit, declared his ambition to the whole world: “Young, therefore vigorous.”
In that moment, Shinji was so dazzling that she could not open her eyes.
“Ahhh!
So annoying!
So annoying!”
Tohsaka buried her face in the pillow, letting out a stifled scream, her legs kicking wildly under the blanket like a bristling cat.
“Why did it have to be that guy!
He is clearly just scum Shinji!
Clearly just a useless spoiled second-generation heir!”
She lifted her head, her cheeks as red as a ripe tomato, her eyes full of self-loathing.
Even though she was now with Emiya…
Thinking of Emiya Shirou, a strong sense of guilt welled up in Tohsaka’s heart.
In that Holy Grail War, they had stood side by side through life and death.
Shirou’s clumsy yet firm back, that line “I want to be an ally of justice,” had all left an indelible mark in her heart.
Although she did not say it out loud, in her heart, she had already placed Shirou in a special position.
That was a comrade-in-arms, a companion, and even…
the possibility of something more.
But now, on this night that should have been calm, her mind was filled with the figure of another man.
“This must be a curse.
Yes, it must be some kind of mental interference magecraft that guy cast on me before he left!”
Tohsaka forced an excuse for herself.
As the head of the Tohsaka Family, one of the three founding families of Fuyuki City, how could she be flustered by an ordinary person without Magic Circuits?
This was absolutely unscientific, and not magecraft either.
She rolled out of bed, walked barefoot to the window, and pushed it open.
Cold wind poured in, blowing away the heat on her face.
She looked at the city below the mountain.
“Youth is vigorous…”
Tohsaka muttered to herself, her fingers unconsciously drawing circles on the windowsill.
“You certainly left in style.”
She recalled that confident look in Shinji’s eyes on TV.
That was something she had always wanted to possess, but had always been unable to fully display due to family responsibilities, economic pressure, and all sorts of constraints.
That guy lived as the most free version of himself.
This realization made Tohsaka feel an inexplicable sense of frustration.
“Just you wait, Shinji.”
Tohsaka gritted her teeth and shook her fist at the night sky, “This young lady will not lose to you!”
She closed the window and lay back down on the bed.
But this time, she pulled the blanket over her head, trying to completely isolate that annoying figure from her dreams.
At the same moment, on the other end of Miyama Town.
Matou Family mansion.
In the huge master bedroom of this ancient western-style building, there was only one bed.
That was the bed that once belonged to Shinji, and now belonged to Sakura.
Sakura was not asleep.
She was curled up in the blanket, her body trembling slightly.
The lights were not on; for her now, the darkness was actually a protective color.
She was clutching the flip phone tightly in her hand; the screen had long since gone black, but she still maintained that posture.
A few hours ago, she had seen that news at the Emiya household.
That radiant older brother.
That Shinji, surrounded by crowds and encircled by spotlights.
After returning to this empty house, Sakura felt as if her strength had been drained, and she collapsed on the bed.
She also had a dream.
Or rather, she had been in a hallucination between sleeping and waking.
In that hallucination, countless Crest Worms were crawling in her blood vessels, making a rustling sound.
That was a memory of fear engraved in her bones, the entirety of her past eleven years of life.
In those memories, Shinji played the role of an abuser.
He humiliated her with words, vented his incompetence with violence, and treated her like a trash can to dump his negative emotions into.
Did she resent him?
Yes, she hated him.
“Brother.”
Sakura’s voice was very soft, sounding especially eerie in the empty room.
She reached out her hand and grabbed at the darkness.
There was nothing.
The mountain that once pressed down on her had disappeared, and the nightmare that once tortured her had left.
“Then what does that make me?”
Sakura’s fingers slid slowly down her collarbone, her fingertips ice-cold.
She had always thought that she was the victim, a princess trapped in this hell, waiting for Emiya senior to rescue her.
But now, the evil dragon that always bullied her had flown away on its own.
He had washed the filth off his body.
And she remained in this worm nest filled with the smell of rot.
Even though there were no more worms here, even though she now possessed all the assets of the Matou Family, possessing hundreds of billions in assets.
But she felt that she was still dirty.
That Shinji on TV was too clean.
That cleanliness did not refer to his appearance, but to that purity of soul.
This was too unfair to her.
According to worldly logic, it was indeed so; how could it be that someone who did bad things could enjoy admiration, while the victim wasted away in the darkness?
But the world is like this: The Way of Heaven reduces the excessive and supplements the insufficient, while the Way of Man reduces the insufficient to supplement the excessive.
“Senior…”
Sakura closed her eyes, and the warm smile of Emiya Shirou appeared in her mind.
That was her sun.
It was the light she wanted to grasp.
But tonight, when she saw Shinji on TV, she actually had a terrible thought.
If…
if she also became like Shinji, completely broken, completely abandoning so-called conscience and morality, could she also become that dazzling?
No, she couldn’t.
Sakura shook her head violently, throwing this dangerous thought away.
“I like senior, I want to be with senior…”
She repeated this sentence over and over again, as if reciting a spell.
But deep inside her body, that sense of emptiness, born from long-term acceptance and suppression, surged up like a tide.
Before, Shinji would treat her with the worst attitude in this room.
And now, there was only dead silence here.
Sakura turned over and pressed her face against the pillow.
That was the pillow Shinji had slept on; although it had been washed, it seemed to still retain a faint scent, though that was probably just her imagination.
“Cunning.”
A tear slid down the corner of her eye and seeped into the pillow core.
“It was clearly you, it was all you…”
Sakura’s hand clutched the bedsheet, a twisted, non-existent desire for possession quietly grew in the bottom of her heart.
It was not a desire to possess a lover, but an unwillingness that the toy that once belonged to her had left her, did not rely on her, and instead was living better than her.
Even though she already had Emiya senior by her side, and that older sister she had fantasized countless times would come to save her.
She felt she had been abandoned.
Not abandoned by her brother, but mocked fiercely once again by that thing called fate.
Maybe it’s not a big deal now… maybe it will be later.
“And If you’re enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!”