"Senpai, what exactly happened to your injuries?"
"Brother and Mr. Anno went up to the third floor. You can tell me now, can't you?"
Sakura sat beside Shirou Emiya, looking worriedly at the bandages wrapped around several parts of his body.
"...If I tell you, can you keep it a secret?"
The corners of Shirou Emiya's mouth twitched. He touched his arm, feeling the lingering pain, and his expression softened.
"As long as you're willing to tell me, Senpai."
Sakura nodded.
"...It was Sister Jie."
After a moment of silence, Shirou Emiya lowered his head and spoke.
"Sister Jie!?"
Sakura covered her mouth.
"But... why?"
After this Holy Grail War began, Hinako Akuta's image in everyone's eyes had not merely done a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn—it had spun a full seven hundred and twenty degrees.
"Sorry, Sakura, I... can't tell you that."
"At least, not until I've figured some things out. I absolutely can't say it."
"But I can at least tell you that Sister Jie isn't an enemy."
Shirou Emiya said so with unwavering determination in his eyes.
He couldn't deceive himself.
Though his body was in pain—no matter what had happened, no matter what hurtful things Hinako Akuta had said to him, no matter what she had done to hurt him, no matter whether she truly was "Hinako Akuta," she was still the Hinako Akuta who had accompanied Shirou Emiya as he grew up for ten years.
Yu Meiren, fairy, incarnated spirit—Shirou Emiya could not be bothered with all those messy identities.
Sister Jie was Sister Jie.
While holding onto his own wish, he would fulfill Sister Jie's wish as well.
Thousands of years of time, thousands of years of wishes... If they still could not be fulfilled, then that would be—far too pitiful.
Shirou Emiya did not think he