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"And this is Fuyuki Central Park," says Rin. She sweeps her arm at the barren grounds before her. "You'd think a place like this would be popular with children and families, but nobody really comes here, not with what happened ten years ago."
"I can feel it," says Archer. His voice sounds deeper and rougher than usual. "The grudges buried here."
Rin nods sympathetically. "I know what you mean. We won't linger." She looks up at the sky, which has grown golden with the last rays of afternoon. "It's getting late. Let's move on. We still have most of Shinto to get to."
But she's startled when Archer takes a step toward her, arms outstretched, clearly intending to do—something. Rin leaps backward before he can.
"What are you doing?" she snaps, her voice high and slightly strangled.
Archer tilts his head in confusion. There's something familiar in the gesture; Rin wishes she could place it. She knows she's seen it before, maybe in a book somewhere. In any case, it isn't helping her embarrassment any. "I'm carrying you," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"I'm not a baby," she sniffs. "I can walk."
His lip curls the faintest amount. "My Master, the future winner of the Holy Grail War, the most powerful magus in Fuyuki, wishes to spend her time—walking."
Well, when he puts it like that…
No. Rin crosses her arms over her chest. She won't let him make her feel weird about this. She can't. "People walk places, Archer. Even magi."
"Maybe," he acknowledges. "But those with Servants have faster methods. Did you not say you wanted to explore all of Fuyuki in one day? We cannot do so letting the legs of a teenage girl set the pace."
Rin's brow gathers at the words teenage girl. She's not sure how old Archer is, but he doesn't look all that much older than her. Then again, from everything she's read, age doesn't work the same way for Servants. He could be a 500-year-old fox demon, for all she knows; or he could be King Tutankhamen, crowned at 9 and dead at 18. The Grail jumbles it all up and spits out what it wants. "My legs are just fine, thank you very much."
Archer's eyes briefly dip downward, then back again. If he has thoughts on her legs, he doesn't show them. "I am merely attempting to carry out my Master's wishes. As she has commanded me to do," he adds grumpily.
There's that bitterness again. That's really going to become a problem, if she indulges him on it. So Rin turns her back on her Servant and instead takes a few steps down the dirt path, away from him and toward Shinto.
Sunset's coming on. In the dying sunlight's shades of red and fire-gold, the skeletal trees seem to stretch taller. Kilometers away, across the Big Bridge, skyscrapers loom, faint as ships spotted on some far and distant shore. Rin can't even make out any features on them.
Dammit, Archer's right. Walking is going to take forever.
Still, she can't let him win this one. Or any one, really. The moment Archer wins even the tiniest power struggle between them, he's going to think he can shove her to the sidelines again, and she already had to spend one Command Seal proving that wasn't the case.
"I just had a thought," she says as nonchalantly as she can muster. "What if we encounter other Masters on our way? We wouldn't want to give ourselves away before we know anything of them."
"Agreed. We ought to conserve energy for what lies ahead," he says, still behind her.
Linking her hands behind her back, she turns back toward Archer. A sudden gust of wind lifts her hair and ruffles her skirt, and, briefly, Archer looks like he's been punched.
"In that case," she continues, pretending she hadn't seen his expression, because maybe it had just been a trick of the light anyway, "we should stay out of sight." She nods decisively. "Take me somewhere high up, please. Somewhere we can't be seen."
When he speaks, Archer still sounds a little distracted. "As my Master wishes."
He stretched out his arms once more. But instead of approaching her, he bends one knee and kneels, this time letting her come to him.
Rin's cheeks feel hot. In all the years she'd planned for another Grail War, in the hundreds of scenarios she'd run through in her head, she'd never imagined she'd be in the position of having her Servant kneel before her.
If anybody saw them—thankfully, there isn't anybody nearby—but if there were, they'd think…
It doesn't matter what they'd think, Rin reminds herself. When has she ever cared what others think? Not her. Not Tohsaka Rin. After all, she is the daughter of Tohsaka Tokiyomi, heir to the Tohsaka line of magi, and now a new Master in the Fifth Holy Grail War. She can't care about something as silly as appearances—at least not about this, anyway.
So Rin swallows back any ridiculous notions of romance—or, heaven help her, swooning—and approaches Archer's outstretched arms with more confidence than she feels.
Then, just like that, she's standing before him; and he's looking up at her, all nine feet of him or however tall he is, muscle and sinew and hair like starlight. His mouth falls slightly open. Rin can almost believe that he stares up at her in awe—as if she were the very center of this world, his world.
She's never been the center of anybody's world before. It feels weird, like a coat too tight in the shoulders.
A light dances in Archer's grey eyes, and all at once Rin realizes that this too is a sham; that he's been making fun of her. That this is just another power struggle between them. He's hoping to get her to say uncle first, the jerk.
"Pick me up," she commands.
He nods. Then in one swift motion, he scoops her up, one arm splayed on her back, the other under her knees in a princess carry.
"Mmph!" She can't help the sound of surprise and protest that escapes her. This isn't what Rin had in mind. The exact opposite of it, in fact. Sure, she wasn't entirely clear on what he meant by "carry"—maybe a piggy back ride?—but not this, this—intimacy, him lugging her around like she's his bride, carrying her over a threshold of their new home…
Don't touch me, she longs to scream. I'm not for touching.
"Is my Master alright?" Archer says, sarcasm singeing the edges of his words.
He's doing this to unnerve her, the stubborn bastard. The complete and utter jerk. Well. Obviously she can't let him win this one, either. If she does, she'll never hear the end of it.
"I'm fine," she grits out. "To the tallest place in Fuyuki, Archer. Let's go."
With his powerful legs, he leaps into the air, and suddenly they're bounding up, up, up, high into the clouds. Rin's stomach drops. But she doesn't feel like she's going to fall, at least. Archer's arms are strong around her, and his chest braces her shoulder and legs so it's easy for her to keep her eyes forward, instead of looking down.
The wind rushing against her cheeks is ice-cold, but Archer is warm, so warm; and he's as solid as a camphor tree given human form. His arms bend around her but do not break. As surprised as she was at the start, now she has to resist the urge to turn her head and bury her nose in his shoulder.
The truth is, she's not used to touch. She didn't exactly get a lot of hugs growing up, even when her mother and father were still alive; and then she lived on her own for many years, with gross old Kirei as her only companion, and who would want affection from him? Rin can't remember the last time another person touched her. Makidera, maybe, and only then by accident.
But she's not against the idea, in theory. The right person, the right touch. And Archer's not even a person, really. He's a Servant—the ideal of a person—so it has to be okay, right? It's probably okay.
She allows herself to rest one hand on the center of his chest. For support, she tells herself, but it's really just so that she can pretend to feel his heart beating under her fingertips.
Rin knows that affection, like all human connection, is transactional. Something lost for something gained. As she presses her hand to her Servant, Rin can't help but wonder what she's losing right now.
After a time that is somehow both too long and too short, Archer sets down on the rooftop of the Center Building. It takes Rin a moment to realize they're back on solid ground. Her head is still in the clouds, still with Archer, boundless and free of the crushing obligations of the Holy Grail War and of being last of her line.
After a heartbeat, Archer relaxes his arms, slowly, gently, so that she can stand. "We're here," he says redundantly. His voice rumbles through her as clearly as if they were still in the air. He might not have even spoken out loud.
She steps to the edge of the building. Archer follows.
All of Fuyuki spreads before them like a starry blanket. This is what she'd wanted to show Archer, what she needed him to understand. Fuyuki is her city, her home. All the lives within it, all the stories which she'd never be part of but which are precious to her anyway—this is hers. This is what her father had left in her care; this is what she has worked so hard all her life to protect.
This is why she needs to be the best.
This is why she needs to win.
"Do you see it?" she says, holding her hand to her heart; the hand that she had pressed against Archer's chest, to the space where a heart should have been beating, if he'd had one.
"I see it," he murmurs.
Something has shifted between them. Rin has lost something, after all. Or maybe gained it. She can't tell.
In any case, it's not as pressing as the Grail War right now. It can wait. She'll figure it out, eventually. Tohsaka Rin always does.