First Loss

Rin lay in the snow with her eyes closed, still taking shallow, ragged breaths. Her pretty face was flushed red from the combined effects of alcohol and exercise.

For the first time, Shinji felt that this girl was actually somewhat cute and pretty, no longer just a flat character from the anime and games he had watched and played in his previous life.

—She was a living, breathing girl. Everyone in this world was a living, breathing person.

"Honestly," Shinji said as he rubbed his head and sat up, looking somewhat helpless. "Why did I only realize something like that now?"

Rin sat up, her eyes hazy with drunkenness. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." Shinji braced himself against the icy snow and slowly stood up. "Let's head back, or we'll catch a cold. I'll be a gentleman for once and take you home."

"You don't need a reason to take a girl who's been drinking home, okay?!" Rin retorted. Then she shakily climbed to her feet, put one hand on her hip, and pointed at Shinji with the index finger of the other. "That's common sense among common sense!"

"Someone who secretly drinks before she's old enough has no right to talk about common sense!"

By the time Shinji had taken Rin home, it was already two in the morning.

It was half past two by the time Shinji returned home. Before he even got close, though, he saw Sakura standing outside the door beneath an umbrella, waiting for him.

"Welcome back, Brother."

"Mm."

Shinji answered casually, seeming unconcerned, but he secretly took notice of Sakura's little hands, red from the cold, and her feet, reddened by the cold beneath her sandals. The thick layer of snow on her umbrella showed just how long this little sister of his had waited in the freezing weather.

What a foolish girl, Shinji sighed inwardly.

"Take a bath first, Brother. Don't catch a cold."

"Yeah."

Shinji still answered blandly, but as he stepped through the door, he added another sentence.

"You too. Don't catch a cold."

Sakura froze slightly at his words. This seemed to be the first expression of concern her brother had shown her in a very long time.

"Mm!" Sakura answered heavily.

Tohsaka Residence.

In the bathroom, thick with steam, the now-sober Rin hugged her knees and curled up in the bathtub. Her face was so red it seemed about to drip blood.

"What was I even doing...?"

The embarrassing things she had done while drunk kept washing over the girl's sense of shame.

At least tonight, she would have a hard time getting over them and falling asleep.

The final day of the holiday, January 8th.

Less than half a month after Shinji had just changed his view of this world, a phone call from Shinto delivered news of Tsuruno's death to the Matou Family.

The call had come from a hotel where Tsuruno frequently stayed.

Standing at the entrance to the hotel room, Shinji looked silently at the father of this life, lying on the bed in hotel-provided pajamas, no longer breathing and devoid of all vital signs.

Beside him, a brightly dressed woman around twenty-five, with a decent figure and appearance, cried as she repeatedly explained something to the police.

Something about how it had nothing to do with her, how she had told him that medicine had to be taken according to the dosage, and how she had found him dead when she woke up in the morning.

Several police officers patiently comforted the woman, making it seem as though she were the family member.

"You are Mr. Shinji Matou, correct?"

"Yes." Shinji nodded.

"The cause of your father's death has been determined. It was indeed an accident. While taking an aphrodisiac, he greatly exceeded the prescribed dosage in pursuit of greater stimulation..."

Shinji did not hear the rest of what the officer said.

Only one thing caught Shinji's attention at a time like this. After he had sent his father's body down to the funeral home vehicle waiting below, the woman's attitude completely changed. Smiling broadly, she handed him a business card.

She even furtively told him that she knew many other nice young ladies.

Shinji laughed speechlessly. That strong sense of reality made him once again deeply feel how real this world was.

Only after seeing Shinji accept the business card did the woman leave in high heels with a satisfied expression.

The woman, fantasizing that she might have another chance to associate with such a member of high society, never imagined that she would soon be forced to leave Fuyuki City.

At the funeral, Shinji, dressed in a black Western-style mourning suit, calmly looked at the gravestone engraved with the name Byakuya Matou.

No matter what, Shinji had never expected that the father whose body he had secretly nourished with Spiritual Energy, and whose drinks he had occasionally tampered with, would meet the end of his life in such a way.

Many times, Shinji had seen Tsuruno complain in private when he was alone, lamenting the pressure he was under and drowning his sorrows in alcohol.

He had clearly only done some insignificant supporting work. Shinji did several times Tsuruno's workload and had never felt much pressure at all.

He really was a man with poor resistance to pressure... Shinji thought.

Did he feel disgusted by this man?

Probably not. Although this man could not bear much pressure, just like the real Shinji, he had hated Magecraft and this rotten household to the extreme.

Perhaps, in a sense, he had not been a particularly qualified father. Yet for a Magecraft family like this, he did not seem so terrible. In fact, he had done far, far better than most fathers in Magecraft families.

At the very least, Shinji had never truly rejected him in his heart. He had always genuinely regarded him as his father.

Memories from his childhood, memories from before he had regained those of his previous life, gradually surged into Shinji's mind...

"Didn't I say that was a long time ago?"

"Just like the archive you often visit, the Matou Family has lost its ancient power!"

"We're just ordinary people now!"

"The Matou Family can no longer use magecraft!"

"You can never become a magus."

"You have no idea how lucky you are, Shinji!"

"There's no need to use magecraft at all."

"Forget about magecraft. Just be an ordinary person."

"Do you understand?"

The words Tsuruno had once spoken continuously flashed through Shinji's mind. This man had once tirelessly and earnestly tried to persuade him again and again.

Father, I'm truly sorry. Even until your final moment, I couldn't let you know that your "son" had never had the slightest interest in magecraft, just like you.

My nature was actually exactly the same as yours. I only wanted to drift through life freely.

I'm sorry...

Seeing Shinji stand there with his head lowered in silent stillness for more than three hours, Sakura, dressed in a black skirt, finally stepped forward to stand beside him. Perhaps she wanted to comfort Shinji in this way.

Sensing Sakura's arrival, Shinji gave the new gravestone one final look, then turned and walked away without hesitation.

No one knew how tightly Shinji's hand clenched inside his pocket, nor how many times he had nearly failed to restrain his emotions.

Shinji understood that Bug Grandpa was merely an insignificant microcosm of the Magecraft world, a world without any morality. Tragedies like Sakura's were commonplace in this world's Magecraft society.

Perhaps, as an otaku in his previous life, Shinji had once yearned for such a world. But after truly arriving here, he found that he could not like it at all.

It was a rotten world where every kind of desire intertwined, its stale stench nauseating.

Maguses were not worthy of praise.

Even if some maguses, like a saintly mother, possessed ideals of eradicating humanity's evil and all of humanity's karma in order to save mankind at its root.

...they still were not worthy of praise.

Evil, at its root, was something like desire. If desire disappeared entirely, humanity would probably truly perish.

And then there was karma. The term was somewhat troublesome to explain. It was an early philosophy that emerged from Indian religion. Put simply, "karma" was what a person did, while "karmic force" was the "habit" formed through repeated actions. For example, if someone constantly cursed at others, eventually the words would come out the moment they opened their mouth, forming a habitual phrase. That habitual phrase was caused by karmic force—habit.

The "eliminating karma" spoken of in Buddhist cultivation referred to "eliminating karmic force." Karma itself was fact and could not be eliminated, but karmic force—habit—could. The karmic force, or habit, that posed the greatest obstacle to cultivation was the long-developed habit of letting the mind come first and principles come first. It was one deeply ingrained flaw that practitioners had to overcome before anything else.

As for that "saintly mother's" ideal of eliminating all karma, it meant erasing every "fact" in the world—that was, everything everyone had ever done. In Shinji's eyes, it was complete nonsense. It was not merely grandiose and hollow, but entirely impractical.

Turn all humanity into immortal souls?

Why make it so complicated? They might as well research how to turn every human into a stone incapable of thought. Then there would be no karma, no evil, and no disputes at all.

This self-proclaimed righteous notion held by maguses—that they stood above ordinary people—was what Shinji rejected most.

Whether it was Kiritsugu from Fate/Zero, Zouken, or Einzbern, Shinji agreed with none of them.

...It would be better if they all disappeared! Everything related to magecraft and mystery should disappear from this world!

The sudden thought that surfaced in his mind startled Shinji.

After forcing the thought from his mind, Shinji finally breathed a sigh of relief and cursed inwardly.

Damn it, I almost fell into madness!