He saw every choice he had ever made, every choice that had been made for him replayed in his mindÆs eye. Then the vision shifted to choices he had not made. He saw himself as one of the drained children in the basement of KotomineÆs church feeding Gilgamesh. He saw himself losing an arm to protect Ilya in the forest outside her castle from an odd looking berserker. The images spun faster and he could feel his magic circuits ignite with power and the pain of that flooded through him until he gratefully lapsed into unconsciousness.
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Consciousness slowly returned to the young man known as Emiya Shirou, Servant Archer, Counter Guardian EMIYAà wait where did all that come from?
Well, first of all, unless Dark Schneider is pulling an
epic Bait and Switch on us, one of the Shirous is Heaven's Feel Shirou. Because in the second chapter he notes that it looks like he almost has an entirely different left arm. It's not Archer's arm, or else the bronze skin would be immediately obvious, but it probably looks like he had his arm amputated and re-attached I think. Furthermore, he then gets a flashback: "Shirou felt a throb of pain in his head as an image of his arm laying bloody on the ground at the feet of an oddly dark Berserker flashed into his head. Somehow he knew that Ilya had been behind him, clinging to his back and trembling in fear."
That's definitely Heaven's Feel Shirou. The only oddity is that, like I mentioned, the left arm looks normal.
Now, obviously, we are thinking of the three route Shirous and Hollow Ataraxia. Because durr. It's natural to think of those first as a starting point when thinking of Alternate Realities.
But let's look at what has been explicitly mentioned: "
He saw himself as one of the drained children in the basement of KotomineÆs church feeding Gilgamesh." Well. Hrmm. This one doesn't really
offer us much of anything... Unless it's part of some kind of original character Shirou who ends up escaping or something... but this guy probably didn't even (briefly) meet Kiritsugu. Oh well. Next.
"
Consciousness slowly returned to the young man known as Emiya Shirou, Servant Archer, Counter Guardian EMIYAà"
Hoo boy... Okay, Servant Archer and Counter Guardian EMIYA are.. well they're either just two different titles for the same "persona" or two entirely different "persona." I'm going with the idea that there's only Archer version of Shirou here--but even if so... WHICH Archer? His original UBW Archer? Is it an Archer with the three experiences of Fate, UBW, and Heaven's Feel? Hehe, that would make it more of an ARCHER, huh? :rofl:
However... do we want to assume that Shirou is
only the amalgam of 4 versions of Shirou? Hrrmmm.. apparently he only has 108 circuits,
suggesting that "only four Shirous" truly...
stuck and made an impression... But the passage "
He saw every choice he had ever made, every choice that had been made for him replayed in his mindÆs eye. Then the vision shifted to choices he had not made." could imply that he saw into infinity, and Oh My God, It Was Full Of Shirous.
Hmm... How much of that stuck? Maybe the near-infinite variations are handled like Archer's memories of being used as a Counter Guardian: it's only something that he has been informed of... Did he SEE every possibility, or LIVE every possibility? It could be that all the extras affected him only as much as a playthrough of the Visual Novel Fate/Stay Night: granted,
every bit of life is covered, but there's a certain disconnect...
Well, whatever... My going theory is that UBW Shirou is the "core," there are prrrrooobably three Shirous that made the strongest influence on him--drawn from the Fate, Heaven's Feel, Hollow Ataraxia, and Archer possibilities--and at the least he is aware of all the Bad Ends in Fate/Stay Night*.
*This probably would lead to Shirou going "Haha, oh wow... My life was structured such that some "reasonable" options might have resulted in a horrible fate? Jesus Christ. It's hard to take Archer and Rin's rejection of naive idealism and views on pragmatism and cynicism seriously now. "Drown on your ideals and die!" sounds much more hollow when confronted with the reality that sometimes you just have to rush ahead with suicidal recklessness like Kamina.
Seriously, what does practicality and pragmatism in rejection of idealism mean in a world where the former could get you into more trouble?"
*Beat*
"And who the hell is Kamina and how do I know that name?"