However if not for the fire I wouldn't be the man that I am today, & it is also the reason that I do what I do.
I don't know what caused the fire that burned down my village, but I do know that I was the only one who survived it. I was saved by a man named Kiritsugu Emiya who took me in & accepted me as his own son, his wife Irisviel, daughter Illyasviel, & their other daughter Artoria, who they also took in were really nice to me too. They adopted me & I lived with them for years, for the first time since the fire I felt true happiness.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
(from left to right: Illyasviel, Irisviel, Kiritsugu, Artoria, & Shirou)
Unfortunately, Kiritsugu got sick & passed away several years later when Artoria, Illya & I were 17, 16 & 15 respectively. By then the both of us had already learned different forms of magic, Illya had learned how to use Irisviel's magic & I learned how to combine projection & reinforcement magic to create weapons out of thin air while Artoria focused on her swordsmanship nearly exclusively. After Kiritsugu passed away, Irisviel decided that the four of us would move to Ylisstol, the capital of the Halidom of Ylisse. However, we were ambushed by Plegian brigands while we were traveling on our way to the capital, the sad part was that we were only about an hour or so away from Ylisstol at the time.
Under normal circumstances Irisviel & Artoria would've been able to fend off the brigands easily, however they were both tired from the journey & had given their rations for the trip to Illya & I. In the end, the brigands got to Irisviel first & the last thing she ever said to us was "Don't cry, please live your lives to the fullest" while she was stabbed through the heart by one of the brigands. Despite her last words, all three of us were crying & had different reactions afterwards. Artoria was loathing herself for not being able to protect Irisviel, Illya just fell to her knees & started crying even more, but I was different, something inside me just... snapped. Before I knew it, I had traced my two shortswords Kanshou & Bakuya:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
& rushed at the brigands. I stabbed the one who killed Irisviel through the heart & then slashed through the rest of them one by one until they were all dead. When they were all dead, I was able to get Illya enough out of shock so that she could help Artoria & I carry Irisviel's body the rest of the way to Ylisstol.
Once we arrived at the outskirts of the city, we found a tree on the top of a small hill & dug a hole to put Irisviel's body in. After about an hour, we finished her grave & gave it a makeshift tombstone that reads "Irisviel von Einzbern - Loving Wife & Mother until the Bitter End". A week passes, the three of us found a small apartment of sorts in Ylisstol & are all working part-time jobs while continuing to hone our magic & swordsmanship. Also during that time, Illya had gotten over enough of the trauma so that she could grieve & visit the gravesite. She got better after a while & now visits the grave every other day or so with Artoria, while I still visited every day.
Over the next 2 years we continued to work jobs, hone our skills, & visit Irisviel's grave, & although our visits weren't as frequent as they first were, we still made time to visit on the important days. It was around that time where Artoria & I decided that I was going to start traveling around helping people like Kiritsugu did before he saved me. Illya was a bit hesitant to the idea of us doing so at first, but she knew there were other people out in the world who needed help, so she wished us the best of luck & we went on our way the next morning.
Over the next 3 ½ years, Artoria & I went from Ylisse to Regena Ferox to Plegia & back again 7 times, & we were always back for both Illya's birthday, as well as the anniversary of Irisviel's death. All the while we were getting better & better at fighting against all kinds of enemies from all across the continent. As we were nearing the end of our 4th year traveling, we were heading back to Ylisstol for the 6th anniversary of Irisviel's death, we noticed fire coming from a nearby town with smoke billowing upwards in several spots. As we saw this, I had a quick flashback to the fire that nearly killed me, but just for a moment. After I had snapped out of it, we had decided almost instantly that we should go down there & help save the people there, not knowing that this would be the start of our greatest adventure yet.
