Fate: Hammer Time

Chapter 36: Grand Theft Imouto

"Y-Yes! P-Please, take me home!"

Five words.

Five words that Illya had been wanting to say since forever. Five words that expressed just how much she hated it at the Einzbern-castle, and how much she would prefer to be literally anywhere else.

It didn't matter that she hardly knew Emiya Shirou, or that she barely had an idea of where she would be going. It didn't matter whether he lived in a proper home or just a hovel. As long as there were people there that loved her and provided warmth, it would be infinitely superior to the Einzbern-castle.

Some might say she was taking a risk, going with someone she barely knew, but Illya wasn't worried. She knew that she could trust Emiya Shirou with her life and everything else.

Which was quite the contrast with how she'd felt about him only months before. For most of the past eight years, she hadn't been fond of the redhead at all, to put it very mildly.

After all, Kiritsugu had adopted him at exactly the same time he'd seemingly abandoned Illya, which had made it seem like her father had replaced her. For years, the little girl had thought that he had forgotten her now that he had a new son, one that was purely his, not a stupid Homunculus that he had to share with others.

Illya had hated that son. She had hated him with the passion of a thousand suns. Every bit of anger, grief, and hate that she should have felt towards her parents for abandoning her and towards the Einzbern for abusing her was aimed at that boy. It was easy to hate him, and grandfather had only encouraged it.

She wanted to crush him. She wanted to obliterate every facet of him. To grind his bones into dust, to feed his organs to the wolves, to take his head with her as a trophy, and erase every memory of him. She wanted to make him feel the pain that she had felt for so long and then some.

In her mind, she could just picture him. A black-haired, black-eyed, younger version of Emiya Kiritsugu, with an incredible natural talent for assassination, with all the characteristics and talents that their father wanted in a son, that made their father love him more than her.

Her every waking moment had been haunted by that spectre of her father's perfect son. He was always there, standing just behind her, smirking confidently, secure in the knowledge that Kiritsugu preferred him over her.

She wanted to punch the teeth out of that smug mouth!

Even the creation of Sella and Leysritt, her beloved maids, did very little to stem her hate for him. She had people to love again, but her rage toward the thief, towards the one who had stolen the home that could have been hers, remained.

It seemed as if that was how things were fated to be, with the sister hating the brother for things beyond his control, but then, suddenly, something had happened to change that. Someone had interfered to change Illya's fate.

She had been granted a visit from her parents, in her dreams. From beyond the grave, they had spoken with her, and had been able to settle her raging emotions and heal her broken heart.

Illya still had no idea how it was possible, how dead people could suddenly appear in her dreams with such clarity, but it had happened. Irisviel and Kiritsugu had visited her, and with that visit, everything had become clear.

Her father hadn't betrayed the Einzbern. He had been betrayed by the Einzbern. The Einzbern, who had not listened for a second to his reasons for destroying the Grail, and who had done their very best to turn Illya against her father to make sure she would remain their little puppet and fulfil her role of becoming a vessel for the Lesser Grail.

Kiritsugu hadn't abandoned her. He had wanted to save her, to make her part of his family again, but grandfather had stopped him, and he didn't have the strength to break into the castle anymore because of that damned Grail.