The first thing Shirou noticed when he stepped into the modest dining room was the smell. Warm bread. Freshly cured meat. A faint sweetness—probably jam—cut through the richer scent of the morning stew simmering in a clay pot near the hearth. The room was alive with the sort of morning energy that only came from a household that worked with the rising sun.
Henry had insisted that Shirou join them for breakfast, now that the boy had proven he could walk without collapsing. His wounds still ached, his muscles still protested with every movement, but compared to the brink of death he had been teetering on days before, this was almost pleasant.
The family was gathered.
Elizabeth, Henry's wife, moved with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with her husband's booming, rough-edged presence. Where Henry's voice was a rolling drum, hers was soft linen—warm but firm in its own way. She greeted Shirou with a polite smile and the kind of motherly concern that required no words.
Their daughter, Eira, couldn't have been more than eleven. She offered a shy nod, eyes darting between him and her plate. Her manners were careful, her posture straight, but the faint tremor in her movements betrayed her curiosity.
Eric, on the other hand, was pure energy. Barely nine, maybe ten, he bounced in his seat as if breakfast were an inconvenience holding him back from some grand adventure. He grinned openly at Shirou, practically vibrating with questions he was clearly holding back out of respect—or because his mother was watching.
The table was set simply: wooden bowls, coarse bread, and earthenware mugs filled with something warm. Before anyone touched their food, Shirou pressed his palms together and bowed his head slightly.
"Itadakimasu," he murmured, the syllables quiet but firm.
Elizabeth blinked, and Henry gave a low chuckle. "No wonder you look like you weren't from around here, lad. You're from the Far East, aren't you?"
Shirou's head tilted. "Far East?"
"Yeah," Henry said between bites, "It's an island nation, far across the seas. Led by the Amaterasu Familia."
The name froze Shirou mid-motion. "Amaterasu… as in the Japanese goddess of the sun?"
Henry looked at him blankly. "What's Japanese? Anyway, I knew a few folk from there—old buddies who'd joined caravans or shipping crews. Had the same manners and customs you've got."
"I see…"
Shirou didn't see. Not in a way that made sense, anyway. How could this faraway place have an island with customs so closely mirroring Japan's? And Amaterasu—the name was no coincidence. This wasn't just a random cultural echo.
'Where the hell exactly am I…?'
He masked his thoughts and continued eating. The stew was hearty, the bread coarse but filling. He'd grown up cooking meals that could make seasoned chefs proud, but he kept any comparison to himself. Gratitude mattered more than critique.
When the meal ended, Shirou offered to wash the dishes. Elizabeth refused outright, smiling but firm. "You're still recovering and above all, you're our guest. You'll do no such thing."
Eric and Eira quickly asked for permission to play outside. Elizabeth nodded, and the children bolted out the door.
Shirou left the house after getting Henry and Elizabeth's approval, promising to return before sunset. The air outside carried the freshness of early spring—cool enough to bite at his skin, yet warmed by sunlight filtering through a pale blue sky.
The dirt road was soft beneath his steps, and each footfall stirred tiny puffs of dust. The village was modest, but alive in a way that felt… clean. Honest.
Farmers bent over rows of sprouting crops, their hands moving with the easy rhythm of people who'd done the same work since childhood. Children darted between homes, chasing each other with sticks or rolling hoops along the road. Their laughter rang out, cutting through the gentle hum of wind in the trees.
It was nothing like Fuyuki's tight streets and constant background noise. Here, the loudest sounds were the occasional bark of a dog or the clink of a blacksmith's hammer.
He passed a group of women hanging laundry, the fabric snapping in the breeze. A merchant with a donkey cart waved at him in passing. He nodded back, still absorbing every detail.
Through an opening in the fields, he spotted Eric and Eira among the other children, playing some variation of tag that involved throwing a ball of bundled cloth. They spotted him and waved energetically—Eric nearly tripping over himself in the process. Shirou raised a hand in return before moving on.
Hours passed as he spoke briefly with various villagers, answering light questions about where he was from while offering little detail. Eventually, he found himself standing at the base of a lone hill just outside the main cluster of houses.
A single tree crowned the hill, its trunk thick and sturdy, branches spread wide enough to cast a generous shadow. Shirou climbed slowly, his muscles protesting with each step.
When he finally reached the top, he settled against the trunk and let out a long breath. The wounds beneath his clothes still pulled at him with each movement, but they were healing—faster than any ordinary human's could.
Avalon…
He had been lucky. Henry's family hadn't questioned how he was suddenly capable of walking after being found half-dead. Explaining Avalon's healing would have been impossible, especially when he also found out of its existence in his very being when it emerged fighting against Humanity's Evil from invading any further. Avalon's healing wasn't instantaneous—nothing like Saber's near-immortality—but it was enough to turn mortal injuries into recoverable wounds within days.
Leaning back, Shirou let his gaze wander across the landscape. The fields rolled gently away in every direction, dotted with the occasional farmhouse or grove. The wind through the grass reminded him of another time—through Saber's memories—of standing in the fields of Britain as a squire, tending to the horses of Sir Kay under the watchful eye of Sir Hector.
Peaceful moments like this always carried a shadow for Shirou. Because peace was fragile.
And his thoughts inevitably turned to what had come before.
The blinding light. The chaos. Gilgamesh.
Being pulled into something he hadn't anticipated.
Rin's determined face. Artoria's steady resolve.
'Did they succeed in destroying the Grail before it could bring ruin?'
He clenched his fists. The questions didn't stop there.
Why did his body feel so different? Why had his magic circuits not only increased in number but improved in quality? And above all—how did he have access to Gilgamesh's treasures?
The wind shifted, carrying with it the sound of rustling leaves. That was when he felt it—an itch deep in his right eye.
"What th- Ughhh!"
The itch in his right eye sharpened into a pulse, then into something far more violent.
It was sudden—no warning, no time to brace himself.
Agony ripped through his skull like molten iron being poured into his brain. His breath caught, and his body jerked as if struck. Shirou had endured wounds from the likes of Heracles and Lancer, had been seared by the Black Grail's corruption—pain was an old acquaintance. But this was different.
This pain was alive.
He dropped to one knee, clutching his face. The world blurred, and for a moment, he wasn't looking at the gentle fields of the village anymore.
The blink of an eye became a universe.
Images tore through his mind:
A city of stone streets beneath a tower that pierced the clouds.
A hole in the earth vomiting forth endless monsters, sealed by divine hands.
Gods walking among mortals, smiling with human faces but carrying the weight of eternity in their eyes.
Heroes rising and falling, names etched into history and forgotten in the same breath.
But it wasn't just images.
It was truth.
Layer upon layer peeled away before him—histories, lies, hidden intentions. He saw the roots of events, the real shape of things beneath the masks of circumstance.
And then—possibilities. Paths branching into infinite strands. Futures that might be. Worlds that could have been.
The sheer weight of it threatened to crush him. His body, his mind—both were still human. This much truth in such a short span was too much for a human vessel to hold.
The world swam, his pulse roared in his ears, and his thoughts shattered into static.
Darkness rose to claim him.
When his eyes fluttered open again, the sun had shifted low in the sky. Hours had passed. His head throbbed with a deep, bruising ache, the kind that made each heartbeat feel like a hammer strike inside his skull.
It took him several long seconds to realize he was still under the tree. The soft hiss of the grass in the wind grounded him, and after a shaky breath, he pushed himself upright.
That… wasn't normal.
Even as he descended the hill, his mind was pulling fragments from the chaos.
The name came first—slipping into his awareness as if it had always been there:
"Sha Naqba Imuru… The Omniscient, Omnipotent Star."
Not a weapon in the usual sense. Not something forged by human hands. This was Gilgamesh's mind made manifest—a Noble Phantasm born from the totality of the King of Heroes' insight.
Literally, "He Who Saw the Deep."
With it, Gilgamesh could see past deception, pierce illusions, unmask intentions before they were spoken. The truth, whether hidden in shadow or buried in time, unfolded before him in an instant. And if he chose, he could see further still—past the present moment into the tangled weave of the future, weighing the branching paths to choose with divine precision.
And now… somehow… it was Shirou's.
That pain on the hill had been the price of using it unconsciously. He had looked—truly looked—into this world.
By the time he stepped back onto the village road, the last pieces were falling into place.
By the time Shirou reached Henry's home, the evening had settled in with the soft, amber glow of lanterns spilling from windows. The smell of roasted meat and baked bread drifted through the air, carried by the chill of approaching night.
Elizabeth greeted him with her usual warmth, ushering him inside before the cold settled too deep into his bones. Henry was already seated at the table, cutting generous slices of meat while Eric and Eira waited impatiently, their plates ready.
Dinner was simple—bread, meat, vegetables—but the atmosphere was alive with quiet contentment. Shirou ate without complaint, even though his trained palate could taste every flaw in the preparation. It wasn't about the food. It was about respect. This family had saved his life, and in a world this far removed from his own, such kindness was rare coin indeed.
Eric, between bites, peppered him with questions—where he'd come from, if he'd fought monsters, what weapons he liked best. Eira watched him in polite silence, though her curiosity was plain in her eyes. Shirou answered with vague but honest replies, careful not to invite questions he couldn't answer truthfully.
After dinner, Elizabeth once again refused his offer to wash the dishes, insisting he was still recovering. He gave her a small, almost apologetic smile, retreating to his room as the family's voices carried softly through the house.
When he lay down, the events of the day refused to fade.
His right eye still throbbed faintly, a lingering reminder of what it had shown him. And with that vision came certainty.
This was no alternate history, no split branch of the timeline he knew. This was a different universe entirely—one where gods had descended from the heavens to walk among mortals, surrendering their raw divinity to bind themselves to humanity.
In doing so, they had formed Familias—houses bound to divine patrons, granting blessings that transformed ordinary humans into adventurers capable of facing the monstrous threat of the Dungeon.
He had seen the truth of it through Sha Naqba Imuru. Before the descent of the gods, humanity had been on the brink of extinction, locked in endless battle with the horrors that emerged from the great hole in the earth beneath the Tower of Babel. Heroes like Argonaut had stood as their last defense.
Then, a thousand years ago, the gods came—ushering in the Golden Age of the Gods, an era of prosperity and heroism. But that golden age had not lasted forever. Fifteen years ago, the mightiest Familia—those of Zeus and Hera—had fallen. Chaos followed: the rise of Evilus, the surge of unchecked violence. A Dark Age.
Now, in the present, a fragile peace held. Orario stood as both fortress and symbol, drawing a new generation to test themselves against the depths. This was the Age of the Familia Myth.
Shirou stared at the ceiling, the truth settling into him like a blade finding its sheath.
So this is why the Grail sent me here.
In his final moments in his own world, he had wished—truly wished—for a world where people could choose the terms of their own death, where no one would be lost simply because they were powerless.
And now, he found himself in a universe where gods lived beside mortals, where blessings could raise the weak to face even the most terrifying foes. A world with the structure—and the need—for heroes.
The Grail's answer had been ruthless in its logic.
Here, his impossible dream might just be within reach.
For the first time since waking in this strange land, a faint, determined smile tugged at Shirou's lips.
Alright… then I'll walk this path.
And with that thought, his body surrendered to exhaustion, sleep claiming him quietly as the moonlight traced the wooden beams above.