Thirty months after the end of the Fifth Holy Grail War...
He'd been numb the whole trip back to Japan from England. For all that he and Saber had had problems, for all that things had been strained between them for months, he'd always hoped that they'd work things out—that things would turn out right, in the end, somehow.
So it had...hurt when she'd told him—hurt with an intensity that had taken him entirely by surprise.
And yet, he couldn't bring himself to hate Saber or Rin.
He remembered the warmth and the tenderness on the blonde's face when she'd told him about Rin.
In her place, he would have done the same.
Love. All his life, he had bound himself to love. How could he expect Saber to act otherwise?
But it had hurt nonetheless. When and where, for Saber, had duty ended and love begun?
Shirou sighed. His ideal had won—but his heart had lost. He was rooting half-heartedly in his pocket for his keys when the door opened and a soft voice interrupted his reveries.
"Emiya-kun?"
He looked up and found a pair of blue eyes staring concernedly at him.
"Sakura..." he smiled tiredly at the raven-haired beauty. Without waiting for him to finish, she ushered him gently into the living room and poured him some tea.
The kindness of the gesture formed a lump in his throat. Looking at Sakura, he realized that, over the years, she'd performed countless gestures of kindness—and he had never really noticed.
"Is everything alright, Emiya-kun?" she asked softly.
He shook his head and smiled. "Everything is alright, Sakura. Everything is...as it should be."