It was the start of the year 2003, reminding me just how close the next grail war is and just how short of a time span I have. After practicing my magic and gaining practical experience, I was getting tired and lonely. I had all these achievements in my learning and all this money, but no one to spend it with without messing up canon leading to the grail war too much.
I know not messing with canon is an unpopular thing among fanfic MC's, but this isn't some fanfic, this is my life and I'm not comfortable with throwing all my knowledge and advantages away because of my selfishness. So, I grit my teeth and soldier on, continuing to practice my magecraft and build experience, but take time to hang out with the people around me.
I don't want to push them away like Shirou did on his path, otherwise I'll never escape the cycle of CG. So that's what I did, I set up a schedule where I would practice for 4 days a week and spend 3 of those days with my friends, one day for Sakura, one day for Rin, and one day for either Issei or Fuji-nee. The 4 days leading up to them were filled with practicing my archery in all forms of maneuvers, from running, jumping, sliding, long-distance, short-distance, etc.
Day with Sakura
Alright, today is the day I'll spend time with Sakura, my sister, and just have a fun time hanging out with her. For that, I bought two tickets for the movie theater, where they were doing a rerun for Z movies. The reason I picked that film is because I learned from previous conversations that she liked Dragon Ball, and her favorite character was Vegeta, someone who escaped his tormentor and made a name for himself.
Now it's just time to convince her to skip school today and watch the movie with me, shouldn't be too hard, she is an academically gifted student who can afford to skip a day. So that's what I did, I called a taxi to the house and once we bade Fuji-nee goodbye after breakfast, I turned to Sakura and spoke with her.
"Sakura, you want to skip school and watch a movie with me?".
Sakura looked happy at the idea, but her response was anything but, "I'd love to watch a movie with you senpai but I want to do it without skipping class. Also, my brother would get mad."
I frowned at her words and spoke up, "Sakura, you don't have to worry about your brother, he and I are friends and he will listen to my words."
Sakura protested, "Even still Senpai, I can't just-"
Before Sakura could continue, I played my trump card, "It's a Dragonball movie".
Sakura took a pause before speaking again, "You should have led with that first senpai, although what will I wear?"
I sigh and smile trying to reassure Sakura, "Don't worry Sakura, I have some clothes in Fuji-nee's room that are about your size".
"Ok senpai, when you get the clothes please give them to me, I'll be in the bathroom" and Sakura gave me a sultry smile as she left.
I felt kind of weirded out since I don't have any kind of intentions with Sakura, but she just might, so I have to tell her how I feel, and soon or something might happen. Anyway I go to Fuji-nee's room and trace some women's clothing, a long sleeve and jeans combo. Something girls in my world wore, I don't know if they do that here in Japan but oh well, I never said I was good with fashion.
I bring the clothes to the bathroom and knock, letting Sakura know I have her clothes, and thankfully she opened the door a sliver to take the clothes. I thanked God that this wasn't a lewd world, I would rather not deal with ecchi on my path to be a Saber-class servant. After 10 minutes, God, why does it take women so long to change? Sakura emerged from the bathroom in a black longsleeve and blue jeans.
I smiled, "You look nice Sakura".
Sakura blushes, "thank you senpai, you look great yourself".
I sure did, wearing a blue long sleeve sweater covering my chest armor and my combat pants that look normal since they don't have the amount of ropes that would make someone with a bondage fetish cream. I give her a jacket that I also traced and wear one myself before exiting the house and altering the door to lock it in place. I then walked with her to the taxi waiting outside, and got in, letting the taxi know to go to "japanese theater the author doesn't know the name of".
Sakura and I spent the first 20 minutes getting there just talking about the changes in our lives, something like this.
Sakura looked at me and said, "Senpai, I don't know if you've noticed, but you changed. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but you looked like there was this impossible weight on your shoulders all the time and that was around the time the Steel-eyed Raven became a thing. I noticed how you would go to school tired and everything looked fine on the outside, but when I looked at your eyes they were so empty and your smiles were so fake."
Sakura looked down with a frown, "I wanted so desperately to help you with that emptiness inside you, just like you did for me, but I was too scared and I couldn't. Too scared to change our dynamic, too scared of your response."
I stay quiet, letting her finish.
Sakura's frown disappears and she looks at me with a sad smile, "Then out of nowhere, the emptiness from your eyes was gone and you started to smile again, but this time they were genuine and so kind when you did. Your eyes had that fire again and that weight on your shoulders had disappeared, and with that return, I felt so guilty".
With tears in her eyes, Sakura looks down and says, "I'm sorry senpai, I'm sorry that I didn't help you and that you had to help yourself. I should have done something, anything!, but I'm a coward!" With tears in her eyes she continues, "you didn't have to be kind to me, but you did, and I felt even guiltier because of that." Sakura cries harder, uncaring of the taxi driver who's giving me a death glare in the mirror.
Me, I'm stunned in disbelief. I, I, I didn't know that she had noticed the entire thing, my sudden awakening in this world and subsequent self-hypnosis to act normal. She even noticed how I absorbed Shirou's memories and conquered my fears to be reborn anew, with those realizations, the guilt starts to set in.
Even so, I have to give her credit, she is a lot more aware than I thought, she had to be to survive. FUCK, I feel so fucking bad for only adding to her stress from the family and for hurting her. I have to fix this.
"Sakura, please look up", she refuses, "Sakura, please look at me", this time, with tears in her eyes, she listens and freezes at my smile, inside a feeling of self-loathing fills me as I witness her tears once more.
"Thank you Sakura, thank you so much, unlike everyone around me you noticed what was going on and realized that something was off. You might think that's not something worth thanks, but to me it is and I'm glad you didn't say anything to me, I wasn't in the right headspace so I probably would have ignored you and hurt your feelings." The realization that I could have hurt her with my apathy and fears only enlarges the self-loathing I feel, and I try not to cry, I fail.
With tears in my eyes I let her know, "Sakura, you are not useless, you are not a coward, you are strong. Stronger than me, stronger than everyone around you for feeling like you have and continuing forward, you are more than you know and what others think of you."
I told her every word that she needed to hear, so she could understand just how important she was, doing for her what my parents did for me. I could see my words working as her tears lessened and she leaned on me as I gave her a hug, both of us crying our feelings out, with the taxi driver throwing me a thumbs up.
"Sakura, I promise you, I will never hurt you again. I won't let anyone hurt you again, as long as I live your life will be one of happiness." The smile of pure happiness Sakura gives me only sharpens my resolve to end Zouken Matou once and for all, no more running and waiting for the war, I will destroy canon if it means Sakura can smile like that all the time.
After the tears were finished and the mood came back up, we acknowledged that discussion and just focused on lighthearted topics like favorite fights in DBZ and shit. We arrived at the movie theater after 10 minutes and I tried to pay the driver who waived the fee, the reason being the fantstic resolution in his backseat. He said our talk gave him the courage to go and fix things with his own family, those words made me feel like more of an actual hero in that moment more than anything I've done before.
We went inside and handed our tickets, I bought popcorn and drinks for the both of us, and sat inside the theater waiting for the Z movie marathon to play. It started and we spent the entire 15 hours there just watching the movies while making quiet commentary on the ridiculous plots and action scenes.
We had a nice laugh about Piccolo's aura farming, which is a term I introduced her to, and she commented on how the Steel-eyed Raven is just like Piccolo in that regard, I told her the Raven at least wins and she laughed. This Friday I spent with her melted a wall that we both didn't even know existed between us and found ourselves finally becoming real friends.
After 15 hours and multiple drinks and popcorn buckets were emptied, we finished the marathon and rode a taxi straight back to my place, where Sakura could sleep in the guest room instead of going back to her nasty ass grandpa. I had such a great time with Sakura today, I've grown closer with her and I've realized something about myself that I had forgotten. I can only imagine what the day with Rin would bring.