“Happy birthday!” a voice stirs me from my sleep. As I open my eyes, Rin Tohsaka is standing at the foot of my bed.

  “.......Huh?”

  “What the fuck?” I asked calmly.

  I give myself a sp on the knee, but am too fbbergasted to focus on anything at all.

  “Don’tcha know it’s your own birthday?” She excitedly asked with a big grin on her face.

  I stare bnkly into space for a minute while she hefts a strangely coloured box onto my bed.

  “As per tradition, every year the birthday boy must go through the birthday ordeal!”

  She pulls a shiny stick out of the box and yells “Transform!” and my room becomes bck and white, me now standing beside Tohsaka in a magical girl dress with cat ears and tail for some reason.

  “What in th-”

  “NOW, the birthday ordeal has commenced!”

  I blink and we’re now moving, incredibly fast on a strange train.

  “In 60 seconds, we will arrive at a fork in the road.”

  She whips around, her tail smacking me in the face, turning my head to face the track, I see in the distance, said fork, Tohsaka hands me a gun, of which I briefly contempte feeding myself..

  “On its current path lies Kiritsugu; we kidnapped him in the bathroom; easy one, two buckle my shoes, and he was gone.”

  “But!” she shouted.

  “Should you choose to shoot that button over there you can switch the path to run over the entire throne of heroes! We’ve even got several Gilgameshs, the child, the archer, the archer, the archer, and many more!”

  “It’s your choice! But someone has to die,” Toothsaka said with a toothy, manic grin.

  I look at the gun in my hand bnkly and say, “People die when they are killed.” Those words escape my mouth uncontrolbly, my eyes shifting to the defenceless Toehsaka, “And know that just because you’re correct doesn’t mean you’re right!”

  Then, it clicked in my head; my mind finally put everything together: “When you have a birthday, you celebrate being born!” I state confidently and shoot the button without hesitation.

  “Good choice!” she pats me on the shoulder as we reach the fork, on a path straight to infinite carnage.

  As the sound of wheels running over flesh fills my ears, Tohsaka hands me a cake with a copy of the evening sky on top with sword-shaped candles.

  “Happy birthday!” she shouts as I blow the candles out.

  I see a fsh of a white-haired, dark-skinned man through the smoke of the candles staring at me.

  Airs.

  As the lights dimmed and the chaos slowed, everybody gathered around the cake as they began to sing in unison.

  “I am the bone of my sword.

  Wax is our body, and chocote is our blood.

  We have created over a thousand candles.

  Unaware of loss, nor aware of gain.

  Withstood pain to create cakes, waiting for your arrival.

  We have no regrets. This is the only path.

  So as we pray, Unlimited Birthday Works!”

  I sit up with a jolt, beads of sweat falling down my face. “What just happened?”

  I hear a commotion from outside, and my lips can’t help but form a small smile.

  (Happy bone day, birth sword)

  Happy Shirou Day!

  I hope you enjoyed... whatever THAT was.

  I'd like to give a huge shoutout to my two editors (who, when I asked what they wanted to be referred to as they said and I quote, "the furry editor" and "Johnifffer," respectively), who not only helped me with writing the regur chapters, but pretty much made this.

  By the way, there will be a proper chapter coming out ter this month, so don't be too disappointed by this upload.

  With that, this is FmingHotGarbage signing off!