Danger

He was dreaming.

Why am I back here?

Shirou stood in the center of that crowd.

He heard multiple voices yelling out to him.

"Why'd you kill us!?"

"We had families!"

"Murderer!"

Bullets began to spray out from guns he could not see.

He screamed as he felt them penetrate him, over and over and over again.

Stop...please.

He flew awake, gasping for air.

Ice was falling from the sky. Hail.

What was I dreaming about?

Shirou struggled to remember, but the scene was already lost deep inside his consciousness.

"You okay?"

He looked over to see Sakusei laying against a tree, taking shelter against a tree.

"Yeah," Shirou said, clutching his head, "Just a strange dream."

They waited a little while until the hail had stopped, woke up Kanashi, and got ready for another day of rigorous Anger training.

Shirou found himself in the situation he hates the most, once again.

Why am I doing this?

It was as if there were two of him inside his head.

You must protect.

Those thoughts repeated as Sakusei described another horrific scenario.

He felt as if he were going insane inside, but his face didn't waver.

"You find us…"

Sakusei got extremely close once again.

"DEAD."

Stop it...

His eyes widened, and he blindly swung his arm, flailing desperately as if to destroy some invisible enemy.

Sakusei, who was not expecting to be hit with such force, was thrown backwards about ten feet.

Realizing what he had just done, he fell to his knees, asking himself the same question.

Why am I doing this? I'm supposed to protect her. Protect her? Then why did I just hurt her?

He pulled his head away from the ground and stared up at the sky.

Someone was walking up to him, and stopped to stand in front of him. It was Kanashi.

"How dare you," She practically whispered.

Before he could say anything, he felt a sickening impact to his jaw.

Ah… she kicked me.

He rolled backwards, unable to move or breathe. Soon after, a blow to his stomach.

"You bastard. How dare you hurt her," She said with silent rage.

He lay there, gasping for breath.

"You know, I thought you were redeemable for a while there," She said as she pushed him off of his side.

She leaned down, pinning him with her body. She began to punch his face over and over again.

After a little while, she stopped.

"Why…? Even as I'm doing this, you still don't even react. You still have that same look, so dead and lifeless."

"Let me ask you something. Why do you look at me the way you do. As if I'm a tiny bug, waiting to be squashed."

Shirou stared up at her, the same indifferent look on his face.

After hearing those words, she recoiled as if she was the one who had been struck.

"You think I don't notice, right?" Shirou said, probing deeper into her gaze.

Her face twisted.

"DON'T TREAT ME LIKE I'M STUPID!" She posed to land a final blow on Shirou.

Shirou stared up her.

"What has made you like this?"

"THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS."

Tears had begun to stream down her face.

"Please tell me. I want to understand," Shirou said calmly.

Kanashi's eye were covered by shadows.

"Stop pretending like you'd understand in the first place."

With those words, Shirou felt something deep in his chest. Was it sadness? Nostalgia?

"I'm done with you," Kanashi spat.

After the incident that occurred earlier in the afternoon, they decided to move on quickly.

There was not much conversation between the three, as none of them wanted to acknowledge what had happened.

They walked in silence, contrary to the joke-filled, light atmosphere on their previous journeys.

Someone please just break the silence.

But his wish was not granted.

They passed beautiful pine trees, a small creek, and a patch of flowers on their way.

Once again, they passed pine trees, a creek, and flowers.

And again.

Haven't we seen these before?

"Are we going in circles?" Shirou asked, breaking the silence, "Those trees, we've passed them before."

Sakusei's eyes widened.

"Is this…? No, it can't be."

"It can't be what?" Kanashi said, annoyed.

"Nevermind. Let's keep going. And make sure we're going completely straight."

But sure enough, those same landmarks came to pass.

"It must be him! We need to move, and fast!"

Sakusei's eyes burned with rage.

"Too late."