> continue: iteration 16, day 5, early morning
Am... am I out? Oh, shit. What if I'm out?! What if there's no reset this time? Was -- was getting Rin killed my win condition? What the hell kind of fucked-up shit is that?!
Holy shit. I can't breathe. I think I'm going to throw up. Getting chills all over. I'm --
> don't freak out
How am I supposed to NOT FREAK OUT?! Rin's fucking dead! Saber and Archer, too, probably! And Shirou's right, it's all my fault -- I didn't mean to but -- and it could be for keeps this time! How is that not something worth freaking out over?!
> get some rest
... all right. I feel really tired anyway, now that you mention it.
I go upstairs and hole up inside a dusty guest bedroom. I guess I sleep some. I can't really tell. At one point I wake up and I check my cell phone for the time. Display reads 6:12 am. I stay there, huddled beneath the stale, itchy covers, and watch my phone as the seconds tick by and the battery level winds down.
6:35 am. I feel hungry.
6:41 am. Parents call me. I don't pick up.
7:12 am. They call me again, this time from their cell phones. Same.
7:35 am. I should probably go check up on Shirou or something.
8:01 am. I should probably go do a lot of things. I don't.
> do you get it now though
Get what?
> how you can lose here
What do you mean? Like... now? Like, I could exit the loop without knowing it, and wind up in some godawful mess of a future I've made for myself?
> it's a possibility
> but more than that
Just tell me, all right? I'm really not in the mood for the whole Socratic guessing game thing.
> even if the loop continues
> you can still get hurt
Well, duh. How many times have I died now?
> not physical pain
> you can see things that hurt you
... yeah.
> or worse yet
> you could just stop caring altogether
Wait... wouldn't that be a good thing for us, though? Then we wouldn't have to feel this way.
> is that who you want to be
I don't... look, this is stupid. We don't even know if I'm even in the loop anymore. So why even talk about this if --
***
> restart: iteration 17, day 1, early night
Oh.
Oh thank God. I never thought I'd be this happy to be back here again. Holy shit.
> take a moment
> catch your breath
Okay, okay. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathing. Centering myself. Fuck.
... so what does this mean? I'm still in the loop, but the reset point has moved forward in time? By about ten hours or so, I think. What caused it? Was it Rin's death? Is this like a blood magic thing?
YOU ARE READING
fate/first order derivative
FanfictionAn eccentric nerd finds himself stuck in a time loop after something weird happens down the street at Shirou Emiya's place. Tom Tomonaga doesn't know why he's repeating the same two weeks over and over again. He doesn't know anything about magic, th...
