towerofanimus | ITP: Another type of Glamour

Shirou was actually in the midst of washing dishes at the moment, busily wiping crumbs off plates and food stains off the surfaces. Once that was done, the plates were dried and stacked up. Sure, he could just leave this part of cleaning to the drones but he liked to participate in all duties of the culinary realm, and it was also a good method for ignoring the slight headache he had woken up with.

It was odd, really. He'd came in for his assigned job, only to find a... noticeable decrease in the number of residents in the cafeteria who had any interest in eating anything.

He was standing in front of the sink, having finally located a proper apron, when the Servant burst into the kitchens with a shout. Shirou looks up in surprise.

"... Saber?" Then he frowns and sets down the wet plate he'd been in the process of drying. "Saber—what's the matter?"

"Are you all right?" she asked, approaching him now and reaching out.

She knew these bodies were illusions, but after everything, after being calm for so long, she had to touch him, to know he was physically here, at least. Her hands rested on his shoulders and Arturia fought to keep the slight tremble there to a minimum. Even if this was Shirou, she desperately needed to be strong now that they knew the truth and a time limit had been imposed on them. People had been hurt and now they needed to see this through lest everyone die trying.

"I apologize, I couldn't find you when everything shut down."

"Why wouldn't I be?" He said, the expression on his face rather puzzled.

When she lays her hands on his shoulders, and holds on tightly, the small tremors that went through her fingers nearly went unnoticed by Shirou altogether except he's usually attentive of what he perceived to be other peoples' needs, especially the needs of a dear friend like her. So his eyes widen, surprise switching to mild, unsettled shock; Saber was trembling. It was more than a little surreal.

He (unthinkingly) reached up with one hand and awkwardly rested it on her bicep, trying to be reassuring for her. Then he blinked. "Uh, what are you talking about?"

"When the power shut down." Didn't he remember? It was something no one who had been present would be able to forget. Their bodies are not their bodies, the food they have been eating was not even food, the very Tower itself was only an illusion--

Well. Not an illusion. Only what each floor contained was an illusion.

Arturia takes a deep breath and tries to force herself calm. Shirou is here and safe and seems to be taking this better than she thought he would. Or perhaps he's just in shock. Whatever is going on, she continues on to tell him what has happened.

"When everyone's bodies changed to what they really are after the microchips did.... I assume they overloaded the other systems in place. One of the systems supporting this place is called a 'Glamour System'."

"When did that happen?"

He asks while Arturia takes a deep breath. His brow furrows, skin crinkling into confused lines. It honestly seems like she's referring to a really upsetting event he was absent for, but did occur very recently. The sensation it left him with was like the feeling you get while the rest of town attends a solemn public funeral that you weren't invited to while you're at your dentist appointment or something absurd like that.

"Microchips? What do microchips have to do with anything? Everybody's bodies?" Shirou repeated, feeling more than a little lost and out of the loop. Supporting systems? Overloaded? That didn't sound good.

Wait, 'Glamour System'? Isn't a glamour a type of illusion—wait wait wait... !!!

Edited 2013-06-16 03:41 (UTC)

"Just this last few days, Shirou."

How could he not know this? Well, the microchips she understood as she had been intentionally keeping him out of that should they get caught, but how could he not know about the Glamour System's failure? Had the Administrators messed with his mind somehow? Had the trauma of it made him forget completely what had happened? If so, Saber was very sorry again as it meant she had killed him all over again.

Well, it looks like she'll have to explain from the beginning. Arturia gives him an apologetic look, releasing one hand from him to rest it on the one hold her arm.

"Do you remember the strange whining towards the end of last month?"

"That's..."

Shirou frowned, still feeling lost. He didn't recall any event happening that could shook up her this badly recently. She had mentioned a 'Glamour System' that had been overloaded; a glamour was a type of magecraft, wasn't it? It was used to enhance ones' presentation of their physical appearance and conceal flaws within an appealing illusion. It meant deception and trickery, commonly employed by fairies. His stomach twisted slightly. That meant nothing good.

Nothing good at all.

When Saber looks at him apologetically, he looks attentive and willing to listen to whatever explanation she had to tell him. He offered a short nod. "Yeah, I remember that."

"All right. If you remember that, then...."

Then she told him, from the beginning, keeping her voice low lest they be overheard. About how she and a team had gone down into the Administrative to retrieve something left for them after Dax's death. About how she and many others had placed the chips that were the contents of that box around the Tower. About how the whining was from those very microchips they found.

She faltered for a moment when she started to tell him how everything came to a head, how people had been woken from their sleep by the whining before the lights died, how she'd started to find the others to make sure they're okay. For a moment, she fell silent and then she forced herself through it. She explained the nature of the Tower to Shirou, the nature of their bodies here, their souls, how it looked very likely their worlds truly were dead, and the knowledge, the awful knowledge every single one of them would die in a year when the power remaining ran out.

At first, she'd been okay with this, but after seeing how everyone else had been reacting, seeing the anger and the pain and the cursing and Lancelot screaming, she was shaken. Had Arturia become so distanced from being a person she no longer had a concept of what it was like? Did she really not remember what it was like to be human at all? The first part she did not voice aloud to Shirou, not wishing to overburden him, but it was something weighing heavily on her.

Just how far from human had she allowed herself to become since coming here?

Shirou listened, the task of washing the dishes temporarily put out of his mind and while he would occasionally interrupt to awkwardly ask Saber to clarify some points, he largely kept respectfully silent and heard her out.

The history she was relating to him, he tried his best to remember and file away. He knew Dax was a decreased member of the administration, but it seemed like the man's decency had lead him to set this entire plot with the microchips and the revelation that brought everything to a head in motion; many questions about the nature of their bodies, their souls and the Tower itself had been answered. ~~He ignored the knowledge of their worlds being truly dead and the deadline. He'd bring that up later. After he'd tackled some other issues first.~~ It didn't excuse what wrongs Dax had aided in it. It wasn't justice. But it gave some measure of atonement.

... So everything was an illusion.

Well, not their souls but their surroundings were completely false. A curtain of deceptions. Even the food, which Shirou was a tad miffed to discover. He'd put effort and love into that food, for God's sakes. And all along he'd been feeding Saber water and nutrition bars?

He remembered one moment, back in one of his first meeting with Caren, when she had informed him of the four-day period by fabricated by some person's wish. Everything in this town is wrong. He had feared in that instance, that everything was fake and felt like cold and on the verge of dying from the despair of it alone. It had taken Caren's reassurance that the events were real and there was one fake thing among the cast, to snap him out of it.

Shirou imagined that was the feeling, on a much grander scale, that had swept over many of the residents during the Glamour's failure. Anger, pain, sorrow, defeat... There had been people who needed help, and he had failed to be there to offer it to them, to protect them. Stupid. Why?

Shirou shook his head. She didn't voice the first part, but she certainly did voice the second part aloud to him.

"You haven't lost an ounce of your humanity, Saber," he objected heatedly, ignorant of her centuries of torment as a Counter Guardian, how completely her free will and personhood had been wrenched away from her grasp over and over again. Once again, he, as far as he knew, spoke simply from awareness of the lonely girl-king standing on the battle-ruined hill whose knights had accused of not understand others' hearts, surrounded by bodies and how much that had hurt her. Saber had tossed away her human emotions for the path of kingship once, and it hadn't worked. He'd seen that.

She had remained human. And in the end... she'd given up on that self-destructive wish, hadn't she?

But Shirou was still, a little surprised to discover himself, angry about that. About how she hadn't been compensated for her troubles, her devotion. "No matter how much time passes, it's not possible for a girl like you to forget how to be human. You throw so many burdens on your shoulders, you get... tired, that's all. When you're tired, it's hard to think. That's not wrong of you. Um, to get tired, I mean."

Maybe you should stop with the 'burdening yourself with everybody's problems' thing. Then you wouldn't be so worn out, he wants to suggest.

Hypocrisy sure is swell.

She stared at him for a long moment, the honesty in his face, the way he spoke. She hadn't meant to voice her fears about her own humanity, but it had just slipped out. Things just seemed to slip out when she was around Shirou and it wasn't fair to him. In some sense she was only using him for her own comfort and her stomach twisted at the thought. He still thought her like the Saber he had known, didn't he? The one who hadn't betrayed him? The one who still protected him and would never have even considered turning her sword on him?

Arturia took a deep shuddering breath and stepped back from him, out of his reach. This wasn't the right time to say this. That was one thing she absolutely knew, not while everyone was still suffering and reeling and poor Shirou for some reason did not even remember what had happened.

But she couldn't continue this. She couldn't keep what had happened a secret for any longer or keep putting it off. Not while Shirou kept insisting she was still human despite how long it had been since she had even had free will, much less been human. It had been even longer since she could have been anything resembling a person. Not since childhood, one she barely remembered now and was frightened by the prospect of forgetting completely of it.

"Shirou...." she started, forcing her voice to go completely cold because it felt like the corrupted Excalibur was being stabbed through her to say this. This had to be done so Shirou would know just what sort of person she really was. Even if this was the most selfish time for it. Every time she tried to in the past she made excuses about the timing.

"I can't even be called a knight anymore, much less a human being. I...." A moment to compose herself. She raised her head, clenched her hands into fists to force herself through it, and looked him dead in the eye.

"I killed you, Shirou, of my own free will."

When Saber steps back, away from him after a long heavy moment of silence on her end, his arm remained out-stretched in the air towards her for a second before it drops back to his side. He stays rooted to the spot, not unwilling to close the distance she had placed between them, not when her face and voice goes entirely cold and flat, as steely as the edge of her blade. Because if Saber wanted space, he didn't want to intrude on that.

She said his name.

Then she denied what he is trying to reassure her of (not trying to convince her, because why convince somebody of something he's certain is true, of something that must be true? That wouldn't make sense. Saber is a knight and Saber is doubtlessly a human being, there's no way she can be anything else) and stops again, hands clenching into fists. Shirou opens his mouth to argue, to point out that she's being stupid again and—

Her eyes find his and she delivered her next words with the same steely force behind them.

Shirou blinked. The expression on Shirou's face in response is bewildered, almost blank like what her pained, forcibly cold confession isn't exactly... clicking in the manner she would want it to.

It's like Saber said something in a unfamiliar language, like she paused halfway through a vital sentence that will only make sense when she finishes it. But there's no sign of Saber picking up and finishing it. So it continues to not make a whole lot of sense to Shirou.

"You... um, what?"

That sounded real intelligent of you, Shirou.

Edited 2013-06-22 05:50 (UTC)

"I killed you. In my world, I killed the Shirou who was my Master for the Grail."

It feels like there's a thousand knives aimed at her, stabbing her through her heart as she says it out loud. She has spoken of it before, true, but the betrayal she had committed had never gotten easier to admit to. Now she's admitting it to Shirou himself, something she had been putting off ever since he first came here.

This is too much to burden him with at once, she knows. First the nature of the Tower then revealing she's nothing more than a traitor to him? It isn't fair, it isn't right.

But leading him on like she has been is not right either.

"Kotomine offered me a deal: he would give me the Grail if I took your head and I--" she falters, fists clenching so tight her knuckles would be white if it weren't for the gloves she wore. "I did not hesitate in this. At all."

And that had been the part that shocked her the most after the fact. She had not hesitated--hadn't even thought about it--until after the fact. Even looking back on it now she could not remember the actual act of taking his head, just that she had done it so fast that not even a thought went through her head.

"You killed me."

Shirou stares.

If she said something like, 'I killed Rin for the Grail,' or 'I killed Sakura and Taiga for the Grail,' he would have reacted violently and accusingly without much thought, but somehow, it seems less important when they are only discussing his own life being taken here. He'd died before, before here and also in the false Fuyuki city. It had hurt, but. He still lacks something, that vital component that tells people to value their own lives and happiness over other', so it doesn't hurt him so much as shock him with the thought that in one world, Saber willingly turned her blade on him.

It didn't sense.

That would damage Saber's pride and she wouldn't do something like that. Surely this him had swore to help her win the Grail already. Why go to...

Then she mentions Kotomine, and his mind helpfully jumps in with handy explanations. Did the priest do something to her? Was that it? No, Saber wouldn't fall for any of his tricks.

"Why would you," He frowns, looking confused. "Agree to something like that... Saber, I don't understand."

Then his eyes widened, eyebrows shooting upward as the logical, more important conclusion that followed that thought hit him in the head like a sack of mold tofu. More worriedly; "Saber, the Grail! The Grail is a definite evil. I mean, it didn't start out like that, but something bad got inside it and now any wish made on it gets screwed... up..."

Shirou trails off. His train of thought is horrified. So his gaze on Saber.

"I know that now, Shirou," she says quietly, voice so devoid of emotion she would've thought herself a corpse if she had not been the one speaking. Arturia knew better than anyone how the Grail could screw up wishes.

The World had made her clean up her own mess to counter it, after all. She saw first hand what the Grail had done to Camelot. In that moment she can hear the screams of the people she had loved and protected as they are torn asunder by both the Grail's curse and her own blade.

"I.... apologize. I should not be around you anymore."

It's the only way to make sure he stays safe. To stay away from him as she'd intended to in the beginning.

"I led you on again. I should have told you of this when you first arrived."

She won't ask for his forgiveness. Arturia knows she doesn't deserve it. That the only reason he isn't angry at her is the simple fact he has no value for himself once you got to the core of him. For that reason she will not mention they had been lovers in her world as well. Or possibly lovers. They never did get a chance to properly talk about it. Would likely have never had a chance if she had not opted to kill him.

Arturia turns on her heel to leave, every step feeling weighted down now that she's burdened Shirou with two things and is leaving him to process it. Unless he stops her, that is. But why would he when he looks at her with such abject horror?

Why would anyone want to look at someone like her after the things she's done?

"What—hey, wait, stop!"

Of course he stops her from leaving.

He starts forward the moment Arturia turns on her heel to leave, his hand reaching out and grabbing onto her shoulder in a silent bid to make her stay, and holding on tightly. (He'd heard that tone of voice once before, hadn't he? Like the speech of a worn-out corpse, too exhausted to feel anything. But where? Where had he heard it bef—Shirou cuts that line of thought off right there and strangles it before it can lead to the castle and the red knight that had been waiting inside it. Saber would never make the mistakes he had made. Never. She knew better.)

If Saber had attained the Grail without him, there was nobody to stop her from making that self-destructive wish. And there were, now that he considered it, many ways that wish could have been screwed up. Every desire presented to the Holy Grail is bent towards the objective of slaughtering as many humans as possible, and wrecking destruction and sorrow across the land. It must have hurt Saber immensely. That horrified him.

"Geez, why are you saying such things... ?"

He doesn't want to impolite to Arturia, but she's obviously in a lot more than him so why's she concerned about apologizing for something that isn't that big of a deal and saying she wouldn't be around him anymore? ??? Leading him on? ??? ??

"Don't talk like that," Shirou requested of her back, still turned to him, unable to see her face. "You don't have to do anything to apologize to me, Saber."

"How can you be around me knowing I could kill you? Knowing that my word, my honor, means nothing and is a lie?"

She would not tell him about her Shirou and herself having been lovers. This is not the same Shirou as the one she had known and that was a matter best left between her and the boy she had beheaded. Still, she doesn't move from his hand on her shoulder, doesn't try to move from the firm feeling of it as it reminds of her of him leading her home by the hand after trying to convince him to let her fight the War by herself.

"Knowing how selfish I am? Shirou, I should not have told you this now when I just told you about the Tower's nature. We should be focusing more on why it is you cannot remember than me."

What had made her tell him in the first place? Oh. Right. She didn't want to continue this charade. Her shoulders slump but she still does not turn to him. There really is no way to escape him, is there?

"So I am sorry. I am not the hero or Servant you thought me to be. I do not know if I ever was."

"Saber, your honor isn't the only thing there is to you and it isn't the only reason I want to be around you, either! There's more to it, than, that."

He retorted without much thought put into his words, and awkwardly averted his gaze to the side for a moment after they left his lips before looking at her back again. Saber didn't want to talk about this, and he got the feeling telling her she would always be a hero in his eyes, even if she wasn't the superhero he had admired and once sought to be in Kiritsugu, would be just as unwelcome. He contributes that as to why she prefers to focus on the dilemma of the blank in his memories rather than Saber herself.

So let's. Leave that absurd comment about her being selfish and that more understandable comment about not being the hero or Servant he thinks she is alone, because Saber is bad at stuff like that sometimes. ~~He is, too.~~ Don't push the subject needlessly.

More reasonably and nonchalantly; "Besides, if I only hung around with people incapable of killing me, I would have very few friends left, wouldn't I? Tohsaka-san could have my spine torn out of my back on her good days."

His grip on Saber's shoulder relaxed slightly as her shoulders slumped downward... Hmm. Is this the point where Taiga-nee would suggest hugging it out like normal people with functioning emotions or... something? Except she'd suggest it with that unsightly grin on her face and that would ruin the atmosphere entirely. He considers the matter seriously.

"I'd tell you not to be sorry, but I don't really think I have the right," He sighed.

And Saber would be stubborn enough to not listen even if he did.

"There's a difference between someone being incapable of killing you and someone who would kill you." She turns, finally, her face practically a mask to hide the selfish hurting she feels.

"I swore to you, the you I knew, in the past I would protect him, that he would make it through the Grail War safe and whole and alive. Not only did I fail, I completely betrayed him." And herself.

She's doing it again by focusing on herself, but it's hard not to when Shirou keeps talking about it. Saber clasps her hands before her to keep from wringing them or from making them stiff by keeping them in fists for so long.

"And you still wish to be around me, knowing this? Knowing the same could happen to you?"

She isn't sure how to feel about if he says yes. Pleased? Disappointed? Scared? She has no idea. Shirou will say yes. The boy has never had any sense of self preservation. That's probably the part she fears the most about this. That he will say yes and she'll wind up betraying him again. Saber hadn't even had the excuse of someone else controlling her--it'd been of her own free will.

Shirou wouldn't defend the breaking of her promise, nor can he argue that she committed no betrayal; it was a betrayal, that much is clear but... She had so many regrets. It didn't seem right to add his death to the list. Unfair.

She turns around to face him again, hands clasped in front of her, and he takes his own hand off her shoulder. Her expression is indecipherable.

"Yes."

He lives up to her expectations and gives his reply without hesitation. Common sense would tell anybody to stop and think the context behind this situation over a little more throughly, consider Saber's unhappy memories before speaking, consider that she's made it clear she isn't fond of this topic, but that's not something Shirou has, so common sense remains silent. "Unless it's necessary to do otherwise, I would like to stay by Saber's side."

His hands were flat, next to his thighs. The back of his hand shows, tanned with work and clean. Bruises remained, but it was still clean. "I'm sorry if that troubles you."

"Do me the favor of keeping yourself safe, then," she tells him, "I cannot even trust myself to keep you safe. If you wish to stay by my side, then you must do what you can to stay alive."

She knows it's a tall order to ask of him, but it's the only way she'll be able to trust herself around him. The core issue with Shirou is that he has no sense of self preservation. Even if she thinks it's selfish to get him to promise this, she has to try. He wants to stay by her side. She had thought he would be hurt by her betrayal, but of course she was wrong.

Now if only he'll make this promise to her, then she could breathe easier when around him knowing that, even if she did not trust herself, he would try to counter that.

Shirou, as usual, looks a little confused at her request like he's not following Saber's lead but that confusion clears up quickly as he realizes her reasoning. If Arturia fails to protect something and keep it safe, then logically she wouldn't feel qualified to protect that thing again if the chance arises so she wants reassurance to lessen the risk.

Like she just said.

"If that's the condition you'll hold me to for staying here with you," he nods and gives his word, feeling like he's not going to live up to it, but resolving to try anyway despite the odd sense of idiot you're being stupid that nags at him. "I promise. I'll try my best to stay safe."

He's not going to live up to it.

If there's one thing she can absolutely trust Shirou on it is this: he will never hesitate to sacrifice himself should the need arise.

But the fact he's giving his word, meaning he will at least try not to, is reassuring.

"Thank you," she says, giving him a brief smile before turning serious again. Giving his word that he'll protect himself is the most she can ask for.

"As to your memory, are there any other things you cannot remember besides the last few days?" Stupid as it is to ask. If he doesn't remember it without it being pointed out, then how can he realize he's forgotten?

Shirou rubbed his chin, briefly closing his eyes in thought.

"...," His forehead crinkled. Then he shook his head. "Sorry, I don't know. There's nothing noticeably missing..."

He paused. It was like a lightblub went on over his head.

Then he opened his eyes again and the lines on his face smoothed out, abruptly remembering where this situation had occurred before. It hadn't been Saber who had brought what he'd forgotten to his attention then however. It'd been a small child, with golden hair and red eyes wearing a very silly-looking shirt. Shirou looked at Arturia and confessed; "But, I think this has happened before. Before I came here to the Tower, I mean. I kept forgetting things that should have been obvious." Really obvious things. Like his own personal abilities. That had been embarrassing.

Except once he'd been reminded, the memories had always came before so he'd wondered if it'd been the work of enemy magecraft.

"What caused it?" she asked, curious now. At least now she could find a definite difference between this Shirou and hers if such was the case. This one had memory problems in the past. The one she had been lovers past did not as far as she was aware.

Arturia's hands went to her hips as she thought this through.

"Perhaps it's the same thing causing it now? Do you remember how it happened?"

"No clue. I haven't figured that out yet," he said and folded his arms across his chest, trying to pin down a definite explanation for the problem but failing. The world had ended before he could go and do something like ask llya for advice.

Shirou watched her think. The teenager shifted his weight.

"It started a few months after the Grail War... It could be the same thing, but why?"

"If it is, that might be the reason why you are forgetting the last few days," she pointed out, noting the other things. She knew this Shirou had survived his Grail War, but not much else. Arturia had been afraid to ask about what else.

"What was it that happened? Did you figure it out?"

"No, I haven't," he admitted reluctantly. He wasn't keen on confessing his embarrassing slips-ups, but this was Arturia. She wasn't going to do anything petty like gossip about it. Plus, if this problem had actually continued to plague him here in the Tower, somebody needed to know. Or Emiya Shirou could unintentionally get others hurt because of his forgetfulness and that would be bad. Very bad.

It would show Saber he trusted her. A small gesture of faith. "Like I said, I sometimes didn't recall simple stuff. Uh, things like forgetting to do my daily routine, or my training... Once, I completely forgot I had a weapon to fight with at all. Which is a ridiculous thing to forget about, right?"

He'd died in a few more of the time loops because of that.

"You are many things, Shirou, but being so forgetful you would not remember you even have a means to defend yourself is not one of them." Her look now was one of concern. What did that mean? What could possibly make Shirou forget things like that and was him forgetting a few days entirely a sign of such a thing progressing?

"Do you know what caused it?"

Don't look concerned, Saber, he remembered it! Eventually.

"I don't," He replied, brow furrowing. There had been strange things happening around the town then, so it had just been one more strange thing in a string of strange occurrences. "I couldn't even tell anything was wrong unless somebody else pointed it out."

ITP: Another type of Glamour

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Crud! I thought I tagged this! Sorry.

It's fine, mistakes happen. Don't worry!

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