Part 334: Distortion

"What, she's not home yet? What a slug."
He clucks his tongue and walks into the room.
Scratching at the wall, Matou Shinji wanders through his sister's room like a blind dog.

"Sakura. Are you in the basement again? What're you doing down there, ignoring me?"
He keeps asking questions that will not be answered.
There is no one in the room.
His sister has not been home the past few days.
It is obvious that the master of this room is not here, but Shinji wanders through it all the same.

"It's just like always. Haha, it really is like always!"
He throws the clock that touches his hand.
The sound of shattering glass is more annoying than he thought.

"Where the hell are you? Keeping a secret from your brother? Why the hell is everyone doing as they please…!?"
He starts throwing things like mad.
…This is like always too.
This outlet has been his daily routine for the past few years.
It is his best opposition that began three years ago when he found out the truth.

Music: Whirlpool of Fate 2



The noble family lost its power, becoming mere humans.
The only special thing is the accumulated knowledge.
The once noble family of magi is fated to perish in this Far East country.



But he did not think so.
Their Magic Circuit faded away, leaving them unable to perform their secret techniques.
The bloodline of magi ended for Matou in his father's generation, and he knows that he does not have the right to succeed the Matou name.
But the Matou family still has the records.
The bloodline perished, but the accumulated knowledge is not lost.



If they're trying to make Shinji sympathetic, they're doing a terrible job of it.





The girl named Sakura became his little sister from that day on.

At first, he hated his new sibling.
He did not want any outsiders coming into the special Matou household.
But the boy started to accept his sister day by day.
The girl named Sakura was silent and ordinary, no more capable than a guard dog.
It is a waste of time to be hostile against someone like that, and it is more charming if one is to consider her a servant.



A family of magi has only one successor.
He knew that, so he did not question their separate upbringings.
Only one could learn magic.
Then it was only natural that his sister be raised apart.



The brother treated his sister as a failure.
The sister feared her brother and always looked down, as if avoiding his gaze.
He thought it was because of shame, and he despised and loved her for it at the same time.
Until he found out the truth.



A room he has never been told about.
Knowledge that was not taught to him.
Talent that was not given to him.
Everything was in the room.
A naked girl lay in the middle of the room.
Around her were swarms of black worms and his terrifying grandfather.
And his father glared at the boy as if he was a nuisance, an attitude he had never taken towards him.



It was not him that was special.
It was not his sister that was kept at a distance.
It was not her that was pitiable.
And it was not her that was looking down on the other person





He laughed.
It was funny.
It was so funny that he wanted to kill.

I didn't know humor could do that. That explains the looks people give me when I tell jokes.

The one he had thought was his pet was actually his master, and he was just a fool.
Which one is the funny one?
It must be both.
At that time, as he went back to the mansion with unsteady steps, he realized.

The world had not been turned upside-down.
It had been like this all along.
The inverted onethe one who was misunderstood was him.
It is just that he finally realized his own miserableness.



She pitied the air.
She apologized.
Though she never spoke the words aloud, she apologized every time she saw him.
She apologized for taking Matou Shinji's place.

"Why are you apologizing?"

She could've just ignored him.
Then he wouldn't have hated her, wouldn't have clung to hope.
Sakura apologized.
Apologizing means submitting something.
Then

"Then you're mine from now on."

Considering all the contempt he had endured, he saw nothing wrong in accepting this.



The room shows no signs of life.
But that is to be expected.
Matou Sakura's "room" is the underground worm's nest, and this is merely for show.
The master of the room does not care how much he breaks the things in this room.
This room is no different from the doorplate that hangs at the entrance.

"Yeah, but you still apologize…! 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry'…!? Don't disobey me if you think you're sorry…! If you feel guilty, keep compensating for it! If you know you've been sold out to this house, be mine…!"
He scratches the sheets.
Something that was his.
Why did a doll that did not think or resist leave him?

"You took her. You took her, Emiya."
That was his miscalculation.
He knew she was attracted to Emiya Shirou.
That thing that held no interest in anything started to say things after getting to know him.
She gradually regained herself, and in the end, she betrayed him.

He trained her to never disobey him, but now she chooses a total stranger over her own brother

"That's why I said it wasn't safe to have her over at Emiya's. But that old bastard spouted some bullshit about keeping watch on that house!"
His grandfather does not even try to take Sakura back.
He said it is fine as is, and moreover, confined him to this house.



"…Yeah. I just have to destroy her hope again, just like before."
He laughs.
The clouded window reflects a face as ghastly as a skull.

Music: Stop