Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Irisviel jolts awake in the night, feeling a jolt run, not through her, but through something far away. Sitting up in bed next to her wife and husband, she tries to control her breathing so that she doesn’t panic, as she feels a faulty… no, a partial activation of the Greater Grail. From here, she can’t identify which portions of the ritual were invoked, only that she was not connected into the system, the circuits of the Lesser Grail remaining dormant, but no matter what, it means trouble.

Shaking the two loves of her life to wake them up, Irisviel quietly says; “Artoria, Kiritsugu… Something’s happened. We need to go now.”

Artoria curses in an old Celtic language that only vaguely resembles modern Welsh, while Kiritsugu turns over and asks for five more minutes before his brain catches up with how serious the tone in her voice is; “What’s going on?”

Irisviel simply needs to say “The Grail.” And both her spouses are alert and ready to go. She shakes her head, though; “Kiritsugu, stay here. Keep an eye on Illya and Shirou.”

Artoria is the one to shake her head; “They’re adults, and the Wards will awaken them if anything targets our home. We take this together.”

Kiritsugu frowns: “Shirou only turned eighteen a week ago, and Bounded Fields are not infallible.” There’s a slight pause before he also admits “I would be best suited to handle any Assassins. I do think they’ll be safe here, though. The old Einzbern castle might be a target but we have not lived there for a while.”

That settles it, and the triad begin to get ready to go check on the Greater Grail in a rush, but when they get to the car and Artoria attempts to summon her armour, nothing happens. She frowns and tries to summon Excalibur, but no invisible hilt forms in her hand.

“I… can’t call forth my equipment as a Servant…”

After a sleepy moment to process it, Kiritsugu pulls off his glove, to reveal a plain hand. Not even a trace of the command seals. And yet Saber is still here.

“I guess one of us is staying with the kids after all…” Artoria tries to keep the bitterness about that fact out of her voice, but even if she’d been successful, the other two know her far too well at this point to not realise how suddenly being stripped of, particularly Excalibur, is making her feel. Of course she can still fight, she’s still one of the most skilled human warriors in history, but somehow losing her connection to the grail has pulled her back within the limits of a human of the modern age.

“We still have Avalon, we’ll figure something out when we get back.” Irisviel says, her voice soft and gentle even as she pulls on her jacket and, with a hint of reluctance, retrieves Kiritsugu’s guns from where they’re hidden.

When Irisviel and Kiritsugu finish their long, quiet and anxious drive into the hills, however, they find something shocking. The entire hilltop the Greater Grail is concealed within is gone. The earth and stone forming a crisp, perfectly flat surface. Impossible even by the standards of normal magecraft. And sitting in the middle of this circle is a person Irisviel recognises, not physically, but off the pure hatred burning in his eyes.

“Angra Mainyu.”

“I am a god no longer, Irisviel. Not that I ever truly was, but I’ve lost any right to even play the part now. It’s not entirely accurate anymore either, but I would prefer to be called Avenger. It was all I could do as the Grail was being stolen away from me to activate the sequence I had prepared for Gilgamesh, to preserve all surviving Servants as regular mortals. His existence is the key to his own vault, so he would have maintained his full power, and warped as his personality was, he would have supported my goals. But he didn’t survive, so that plan went nowhere. I had nothing as Avenger to lose in no longer being a heroic spirit either, but I’d imagine that’s not the case for your little pet.”

Kiritsugu butts in, a surprising amount of care and venom in his tone considering how rocky his relationship with Artoria used to be, even for a year or two after the fourth Grail War. A reminder just how much time had passed since then. “What did you do to our wife.”

Avenger just laughs; “A favour, honestly. No relationship would have been healthy while her continued existence is dependent on your continued supply of magical energy. All jokes aside, though, I didn’t even consider her, it was a desperate act of self-preservation. Knowing humanity, a mistake I would not have made knowingly and am soon going to come to regret. Unless you would put a potential future problem out of his misery just to maybe prevent the harm he could cause… but that isn’t how you do things anymore, is it, Kiritsugu? You're a tame little pet now. Such a shame, we would have worked well together.”

While Kiritsugu tries to control his temper, knowing Avenger is just baiting them, Irisviel speaks instead; “Did you see who did it? And how? An entire mountain is missing, that’s an impossibility.”

“I do. But why would I tell you? They drew on the latent magical energy within the Grail to power what they did, and as they did so, I felt their wish… And I decided that them succeeding with their plan would be amusing, so I allowed them to take what they needed.”

The two humans actually belonging to this era exchanged a glance, knowing that this, whatever it is, could only mean it was something terrible.

Illyasviel Emiya was already struggling to sleep when she heard the… attempt… her parents made at leaving quietly. Giving up on sleep now that she has the added worry of what’s going on and whether they’ll be ok, she instead leaves her room and heads downstairs.

Sitting on the couch alone is Artoria, for the first time lacking that kingly confidence and grace. She has Avalon in her lap, but the sword inside it is not Excalibur, and the presence she has is no longer that of a Servant.

She also looks slightly older, already looking more like a woman in her thirties, not the timeless youthful look she had before.

“Mom? Where’s Mama and Papa?”

 Artoria lets out a long, heavy sigh; “Having trouble sleeping again? They are checking on the Grail, something unusual has happened, but it will most likely be fine.”

 Illya catches the lie but chooses not to press the matter, instead asking; “Are you okay?” even as her mind races, trying to figure out what could possibly be going on. It had to be serious if it’s causing the normally most stoic of her parents this much distress.

The former King sighs, her accent thicker than usual as she replies; “No. Not really. I thought I’d dealt with… a lot of things, when I chose to be with your mother and father instead of going back to my own times. It… seems I hadn’t quite worked through the reality of the situation.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “I’m not a heroic spirit anymore. I have my skills, knowledge, and some of my abilities, but… things I had solely due to being summoned as a Saber are gone… Though I also feel like weaknesses I was arbitrarily burdened with due to being pressed into that box are also gone. For the most part, however, I am playing by the same rules as anyone else alive in this era.”

A new voice softly speaks up. “Wait, really?” Shirou asks, softly since Sella and Leysritt are still sleeping, standing at the top of the stairs with a shocked expression on his face.

Illya doesn’t let her own shock at that fact show, quickly dismissing her worries for Artoria's health given what Avalon's whole deal is, and instead focuses on comforting Artoria. “It’s okay. You’re still here, so everything is going to be fine.”

Artoria is a little taken aback by the gesture, not realising she’s not doing as good a job of hiding her emotions as she used to, but she holds her adoptive children close, and not for the first time, wishes she could have applied what she’s learned raising these two, and maybe given Mordred a better life. It’s something she’s tried to move past, but right now the past is something she just can’t pull her mind out of.

Snow crunches underfoot as Miyu Sakatsuki flees the captors who’d kept her imprisoned the last thirteen years. A fate she was supposed to escape on her sixth birthday had been extended well into adulthood. But they were expecting the ritual of fighting and claiming each Card to be required before the Cards and the person they’d chained into the ritual as their wish granter would function together to reawaken the powers she’d lost. And they were mostly correct, but they hadn’t counted on Miyu’s own observation and analysis skills.

Boosted with the magical energy of “obtaining” all seven cards by madly grabbing at them, she had put enough detail into the desire she wanted granted that it was relatively cheap to grant: The Flash Air skill the Ainsworths had made their signature. It hurt, in more ways than one, to have the magical crest of the family that’d locked her up and allowed that mad old man to experiment on her for the past decade carved into her magical circuits, but it was the perfect way to make sure she’d never ever be trapped with anyone like that, ever again.

It took several attempts to actually come out on solid ground, and a few more to lose her pursuers, but by the time she’d done so, the internal damage caused by passing through their portals repeatedly had begun to take its toll. She knew she needed time to rest and heal… but she also needed the cards. If she can claim even one, it’ll give her the power to protect herself, and as an added bonus, prevent the Ainsworths substituting anyone else in her place. Although, with the cards scattering and the Hybrid Ritual shifting to autonomous mode, that likely involves defeating at least one Heroic Spirit.

No matter who is picked as the Guardian of the card, Assassin should be the weakest without their stealth being an option, and the most useful for her hiding, so she decides to target that one, and begins searching for the magical signature of the hidden pocket dimensions the cards hid themselves within as they began gathering magical energy for the ritual.

Some of the knowledge she’d used to come to this plan was already beginning to fade from her mind as the broken connection to the Grail and the Ainsworth’s modifications fades, but she doesn’t need most of it, only the technique to Install the cards, which she makes sure to burn into her mind as she walks alone through the night.

Chapter Text

As Illya stirs awake, she shifts slightly and is immediately hit by pretty much everything aching. Still sleepy, she opens her eyes and tries to figure out why… and why she’s in the lounge room.

“Good morning, sleepy head. Arturia and Shirou woke up earlier, it’s already the afternoon.”

Illya’s brain subconsciously switches to German, following Sella’s preferred language. Even though Arturia only spoke modern Welsh very rarely and her own time's version of the language even less often, she’s made sure to teach her kids both. With Liz usually being nonverbal and preferring Japanese Sign language, everyone in the family had ended up fluent in 5 languages. Their english, however... well it's not one of the five.

“Hey, Sella… Did we.. fall asleep down here last night…”

The events of last night come flooding back to Illya and that worry returns, blurting out the next question before Sella even has a chance to reply to the previous one; “What abou-”

Sella smiles and places some food on the dining table; “Iri and Kiritsugu got back safely. They decided to just notify someone they trusted within the Mages’ association. They’ll get back tomorrow with someone who can take care of this.”

Logically, that works fine, but Illya can’t quite shake her instincts insisting it’s going to be more complicated than that; “I… hope that really will be enough.”

“Everything will be fine. Now eat up, this one’s my treat since you were up all night worrying.” Sella even anticipates Illya’s objection that she could do it herself, with only a slight playfulness to her tone acknowledging it.

As she eats her meal, Illya gets curious about the one family member not accounted for by that and asks; “Where’s Shirou?”

Which is of course when Liz looks up from the video game she’s playing to sign; [He’s on a date.]

Sella takes over almost instinctively, the two sisters knowing each other’s patterns by now; “I wasn’t planning to open the poor boy up to any more teasing, but yes. He asked out that Tohsaka girl… which one was it?”

[Sakura.]

“Right, yes.”

Illya tilts her head and hums; “Oh really? I never expected him to make the first move like that.”

[Rin had to egg him on.]

“Yeah, that makes more sense.”

After eating, Illya goes through her usual routine, albeit a little late. She also decides to put her hair up into a ponytail, to stand out a little more from Sella, Liz and Irisviel. Her features aren’t an exact mirror for the other three since she is also Kiritsugu’s kid, but it’s close enough that she still wants stand out as her own person.

Her old school friends are too busy now with university and such to hang out today, so instead Illya focuses on the skills she wants to hone. The Einzbern’s magic always comes easily to her, having been programmed in, and then refined through years of practise, but Iri also found a way for Kiritsugu to break the rules a little, adding his crest to Illya's, and then allowing her pass a copy of the hybrid crest to Shirou. Her little brother is much, much more talented with time alteration than she is, though, so even though Illya has more versatility to her skill set, and Shirou also struggles with the Einzbern magic in return, … a small competitive side of her still refuses to lose at this either.

Illya still uses German for her incantations, fluency in a language is one thing but a fine enough pronunciation to cast spells in it is far harder to manage; “Time Alter: Double accel”

Time slows down around her, or, more accurately, she and she alone is accelerated, but her body begins feeling like it’s burning as she tries to sustain the effect longer than a second or two, so for safety’s sake she has to end the spell.

Frankly, she was hitting a wall with this spell. Neither of them can go beyond double speed, but at least Shirou can make the effect last nearly as long as Kiritsugu does, and the limiting factor there is his energy reserves, not even his physical stamina. But her own biology is just too complicated to survive altered time flow for too long, even with her trying to layer in some basic healing magic…

Her own biology.

Illya is on the edge of an idea at that point, but then her phone rings, and a panicked Shirou asks; “Onee-chan, I need your help, Sakura disappeared in the middle of the street and I can’t find her! One moment she was there and the next-”

Illya interrupts him with an “I’m on my way, be there soon,” hangs up on the call and begins running. It only takes her a few moments to rush into the garage and get Arturia’s motorbike ready to go. Her mum had taught her how to drive it while she still had a B-ranked Riding skill supplying her with that information. Illya had been a much calmer student than either of Arturia’s spouses, much to the knight’s relief, but tonight you wouldn’t have been able to tell that at all, her driving far more resembling her other mother’s wild style.

Nobody fucks with her little brother. Except her and Liz, of course, but that’s different.

Chapter Text

When Illya finally arrives at the scene of the disappearance, she pulls up right next to a furious Rin and an anxious Shirou. There’s also something that feels vaguely… wrong… about the regular office building they’re standing in front of, but she can’t quite put her finger on it.

“Thank you both so much for coming, I…”

“Have no idea what happened to my sister. Yes.” Rin snaps back, cutting Shirou off entirely.

“Calm down and think, Tohsaka. This is no time to lose your temper.” Illya didn’t mean to always be this cold towards Rin, but somehow every single time the two ran into each other it went like this, the two just naturally got under each other's skin.

Rin is about to give an angry retort, but realises that’d only prove the point, so instead she takes a moment to regulate her emotions.

In that time, Illya asks Shirou; “Okay, what happened before she disappeared.”

“Nothing. We crossed the road, she tripped over something, and when I turned around I couldn’t see her or whatever she tripped over.”

Illya takes one of her own hairs and pushes magical energy into it, not creating a familiar but instead creating a structure almost like a miniature bounded field. Binding the magic infused into the hair into her senses. It’s usually not a necessary step to detect magical presences, but since she hadn’t picked up on anything unusual so far, she needed the extra attention to detail.

Sure enough, as the hair passes within a couple meters of the office building they’re standing in front of, she feels the magic in the hair start to be pulled away, some… other… phenomenon draining a tiny, usually impossible to detect amount of magic from the surroundings.

“There’s something weird here, about a metre from the building’s walls in all directions.”

“Like a bounded field, or…” Shirou asks, confused

“All of us would be able to feel something like that normally. This is more of a… shadow of something else.”

Rin interrupts at that point, having an idea; “Oh! Sakura had a lot of talent with Void magic, perhaps it’s a reality marble or something?”

Shirou tilts his head, confused; “Why would one of those be around some random office building, though?”

Illya quietly shakes her head and signs [Last night.]

Shirou realises what she’s suggesting and drops the matter, so Illya spends a few moments trying to figure out a solution.

“Tohsaka Rin, you have some amount of skill with void magic as well, correct?”

“I… have an affinity with all five elements, but I never really put much work into that element, since you can do a lot more with the main four. Sakura was the one with real talent in the area.”

Pulling out a small, single-bullet firearm, Illya smiles softly; “Affinity will be plenty.”

Shirou and Rin both look at her in shock for a moment so she sighs, opens the chamber and pulls out a bullet; “Papa’s origin is Severing and Binding. It’s a little improvised, and it wastes something he intended to be a last resort for Shirou and I to defend ourselves with, but…” she glances at the desperate look on Shirou’s face… “It will let us break in.”

Rin accepts the bullet with a thoughtful expression as the trio move into the alleyway next to the building; “I understand the theory of this, Illya… but if Sakura slipped into an alternate reality, how could we ever find her?”

“Your blood works fine. She is your sister.”

Rin hesitates as the obvious fact she already knew is pointed out to her, but then she sighs, presses her thumb into the tip of the bullet until it draws blood, and begins the improvised spell, using the remains of Kiritsugu’s rib in the bullet to tie the concept of severing to the veil between the worlds, and then also binding ours to wherever Sakura is.

With a sound like shattering glass, an opening appears in midair in the alleyway. “I… don’t know how long I can hold this, hurry.” Rin adds, pulling out a handful of gemstones which begin to glow vividly as the magical energy stored within is consumed.

Shirou nods and bolts through the portal, followed by his older sister.

And they both see a ruin. Contained inside a shimmering glass prism is a replica of the office building… or was. It’s all just rubble now, with an unconscious and horrifically injured Sakura lying in front of it. With time being of the essence, the two siblings focus on carrying the unconscious girl outside of this weird pocket dimension.

Rin gasps as the trio reappears, and without prompting pulls out a necklace with a red, heart shaped gemstone and begins healing her sister. By the time the stone is spent, Sakura’s breathing has stabilised and she’s no longer on the edge of death, but she is still so badly hurt that she stays unconscious. “Shirou, go get your car, we can’t take her back as is.”

Shirou doesn’t budge, though, until Illya raises her voice and insists; “You can’t do anything for her right now, nobody can. We need to get her back home. When mum gets back we can use Avalon.”

Rin’s eyes go wide as she casually mentions that; “How the heck do you an artefact on that level… and on top of that, you've figured out how to make it work… that’s insane…”

Oh right, she’s still here.

“Okay, this is going to be a big leap of trust for us, we will need you to keep that quiet if you want us to help heal your sister.”

“Of course. Fine. So long as it helps Sakura, I can work with that.”

Illya was glad to be leading the way home on her bike, the mood in the car between Shirou and Rin seemed incredibly tense. It makes sense, in a way, after Shirou’s first date with her sister nearly resulted in her death… at least for someone who seems as petty as Rin. They’ll get over it when Sakura recovers.

When they get home and lie the girl down on the couch, though, Shirou points out something the others had missed, in their haste to bring her here; “She’s holding a card I’ve never seen before, and even I can feel the magic coming off it.”

Rin frowns and opens up her sister’s hand, revealing a stylised playing card, with a name all three recognise from their parents’ stories of the last Grail War: Berserker.

Rin lets out a gasped “what”, carried away by the shock of the situation, while Illya immediately tries to take the card in question, but it's stuck to Sakura's hand. Well, no reason not to tell her now, she's going to figure it out sooner or later.

“Someone stole the greater grail. We don’t know who or how yet, but… I think we found out what it’s being used for. I can’t tell how it works, though, maybe Mum and Mama will, when they get back.”

Rin raises an eyebrow at the clear mention of three parents, but doesn’t comment. Illya can’t quite tell why, it could be some form of distaste for the idea… or it could be that the orphan is simply jealous.

So, she doesn’t bite the provocation, and instead the three sit there in silence for a little bit, before Shirou says; “I’ll call dad, fill him in on what happened. Our parents were asking for someone to help investigate from a trusted friend at the clock tower, so that should make sure it’s someone who can contend with… whatever hurt Sakura so badly.”

“It was a Heroic Spirit, Shirou.” Illya says softly, knowing her brother already knew… but also understanding why he didn’t want to acknowledge that possibility directly.

Sakura’s survival was damn near miraculous, particularly against Berserker of all classes.

Chapter Text

Miyu gives a small smile with no real emotion behind it as she sees the masked, cloaked figure. The Assassin card had fallen in a wide open park, little to hide around or behind aside perhaps children’s play equipment. This had not been the first card she’d found, but it was the first one she was choosing to engage.

Maintaining the five Flash Air portals protecting her body, she slowly walks towards the assassin. With one arm he begins throwing knives at her as he jumps around evasively, but they all pass through her harmlessly, ejected out the opposite end of the barrier she was hiding within. Each individual knife only took a tiny amount of her reserves to transport past herself, but the Servant threw them with such speed that she still lost energy faster than she replenished it. She'd lose the fight of attrition, so she had to act now, while she still could.

When Assassin pauses his attacks for a moment, seemingly confused, she opens a small gap in her protection to fire out a blast of pure magical energy, a spell far more expensive due to the lack of any technique to craft it with, and nearly loses a hand in the process. The knife he’d thrown, faster than her eyes can process it, passes through the small hole she’d opened in the portals and scrapes the sleeve of the tattered black dress she’s wearing, but thanks to the awkward angle of the throw and some basic reinforcement magic she had applied to her clothing in anticipation of something like this, the blade fails to actually scratch her skin before dropping to the ground.

The spirit had picked up on the momentary weakness and taken advantage of it. Their will and personalities might not be present, but their intellect and combat skill certainly is. And with that information, knowing that she likely won’t leave such an opening again, the warped spectre of a heroic spirit, the Guardian of the card, clearly determines her as a threat. Shifting his cloak aside to reveal his other arm, enormous, misshapen and bound by some kind of sealing cloth, Miyu can immediately sense the magical energy begin to coalesce. Noble Phantasm. Automatic defence portals like the ones she’d been using would shatter on impact with something of that power level, but this is the outcome she’d been waiting for.

“Zabaniya” The spirit speaks for the first time, invoking it’s legend.

Miyu, though, had been muttering an incantation under her breath for the entire encounter, only baiting this attack when she was near completion. Finishing it with the pair of location parameters, she targets an area of empty air in front of her own chest when she determines that’s where the attack is headed, and connects it to the air behind the Guardian’s upper back, expecting some kind of blow to send him reeling.

Initially she thinks she’s miscalculated when he only gently touches his own back before withdrawing the hand, but then he opens the hand in question and his own heart appears inside it. He only realises his own mistake when he begins squeezing and feels the pain of his heart being crushed, but by then she’d already shot off another blast of condensed magical energy, amplifying it’s speed to the maximum to make sure she got the hit, since she didn’t need to deal with any armour or anything protecting the target.

Any other Assassin, or this foe in any other location, would have been a nearly impossible fight for her. Instead, she holds a card in her hand, and barely enough magical energy to get herself back out of the mirrored pocket reality and teleport onto some rooftop to pass out.

There’s a moment of fear as she comprehends just how close she came to running out of energy and dying or being stranded outside reality, which is also a very sure way to die. But, ultimately, that would have been a preferable fate to her pursuers catching up with her. And now nobody will ever find her, unless she chooses to allow them.

Sakura’s foe had a similarly terrible matchup, though he was powerful enough that it barely even bought her a slim chance at victory. The younger Tohsaka had no clue what the enormous mountain of muscle trying to kill her even was, nor why he seemed to be wearing a very professional suit over the pure mass of muscle that is his body. She did have a basic understanding of how she ended up in this strange bubble of space around an unusually empty office building, but it’d proved far harder to pierce her way out of this mirror world even with her knowledge of void magic. She’d only really had experience hiding small objects just outside of reality and then allowing them to return to it when she wants to, up to this point. Well, that, and some of the family’s gemstone magic, but she wasn’t particularly good with that either. Her only “spell” with gems was less an intentional thing and more a… useful but dangerous side effect of her raw power overloading the crystalline structure of the gem.  

The girl tries to reason with the terrifying man as she flees up the first few floors of the office building, only barely managing to stay ahead of him due to his own ridiculous size and the technique of reinforcing her own limbs she learned from her sister… but eventually she figures out that there is no person behind those eyes, just the intent to kill. With a lack of effort that’s almost scarier than if she’d struggled to do so, she forgets about her ethical qualms with the technique she’s about to use and begins to lay traps at choke points, which were particularly plentiful in an office building with only a few main stairwells, and lucky for her, her opponent was never clever enough to just go up the other set of stairs rather than following directly behind her.

The first time she’s a little sloppy, and a gemstone reappears in midair outside his body, draining the light from the air around it for a moment before bursting out with pitch black blades that shred his suit but shatter on impact with his bare skin. The second time goes a lot better, and she recalls the stone inside his stomach as he chases her up a staircase, the blades erupting from inside him. Finally, the man keels over, dead… Sakura’s legs nearly give out with relief and she limps up to the next floor, sits down in a nearby chair, and begins to worry about how to escape this realm and get back to Shirou, wondering how she'd make up for how badly this'd ruined their date...

Which is when the giant bursts through the floor, a jagged metallic lump of a sword in hand, and would have beheaded her if the chair hadn’t been damaged, one leg giving out underneath her as she desperately pushes away with surprise. Barely escaping to the stairwell in time, she begins repeating the technique she used to kill the giant, this time using the time during his death to set even more traps as she runs.

The fourth gem does still temporarily kill the giant, but the blades no longer pierce his skin, even from the inside.

The eighth gemstone fails entirely, the man’s insides too tough after the previous six successful kills. She needs to perfectly target his heart to get any more successful shots.

By the time she begins nailing this she’s running out of floors to flee through and she’s also nearly out of gemstones.

Six left, kill

Five left, kill

Four left, kill

Three left, she fails to get the pinpoint precision needed.

Two left, kill

And her last gemstone manages to kill the titan for the eleventh time.

Battered and bruised from a million tiny injuries, Sakura bursts onto the rooftop and rummages around in her purse to find… nothing… Looking up at the terrifying giant as he steps out onto the rooftop, despair and grief wash over her as she backs away slowly. She is going to die. That is an inevitable fact, and she was far, far, far too weak to even come close to averting that fate. He closes the distance in a single leap, but luck decides to spare her this one time, and the entire building collapses underneath the giant’s weight, important structural supports weakened by his rampage up every previous floor of the building. Both of them are sent tumbling all the way back down, and finally his own sword, forced into his back by the weight of all the rubble weighing down on him, pierces his heart one final time.

And Sakura finds, not a man, but a card, in the rubble. Reaching out and plucking it out of the rubble, she manages to take a few steps out of the building before she sways and collapses, as the relief hits her and the adrenaline can no longer keep her going.

Chapter Text

Three very stressed Emiya parents basically raced home after informing their associate at the clock tower, ironically enough Waver, of what Shirou had discovered. They had been on opposite sides last grail war, but since both of them kept a Servant after the war, and that servant had ended up becoming a part of their families in both cases, they’d actually ended up fairly close over the years.

Waver had thankfully agreed to help, and said he’ll bring his own apprentice, and someone he knows capable of taking down a heroic spirit, just in case. It’ll take time for them all to get together organise, though, so until then they had to deal with the fact that apparently their children were dragged into this mess during the one day they were gone.

Artoria is the most physically fit, so she’s the first one through the door, stumbling to a halt as she sees the chaos in the lounge room. One badly injured girl with brown hair lies on one sofa, Shirou and the injured girl’s sister watching her anxiously, while Illya and Sella prepare dinner together.

Kiritsugu silently and stoically sweeps into the room, concealing his true emotions on the situation and preoccupying himself by helping his daughters in the kitchen.

Irisviel can’t tear her eyes away from the Card clasped in Sakura’s hands.

The silence is broken by Rin, who sounds a lot more scared than angry, despite the sharpness in her words; “Okay, is it finally time for all of you to explain what’s going on!?”

Artoria smiles softly and introduces herself; “You might have heard of me going by Seren Emiya in the modern age, after I truly joined Kiritsugu and Irisviel’s family, but my true name is Artos Pendraig… Or, in it’s more modern form, Artoria Pendragon. Until recently, I was the Saber class Servant of the Fourth Grail War.”

That doesn’t seem to take much of an edge off Rin’s frustrations, though the stress does ebb away as Artoria rests her sheath next to Sakura, and the girl’s wounds begin healing again; “Okay… That explains why a relic like Avalon is here and how you’re able to use it… But that just opens up more questions. What do you mean you’re not a Servant anymore, how is that possible?”

More accusatory, Rin’s eyes shift to Irisviel and she asks; “And wasn’t the war shut down inconclusively when your team discovered the Grail was corrupted? How come you got to keep your Servant?”

Artoria begins to answer with the plain facts of the situation, but that only seems to make Rin more upset given how sensitive the issue is for her, so instead, Irisviel gently cuts to the heart of the issue; “This discovery was too late to save your father, and I’ll always be sorry for that.”

The wording of that also just seems to make things worse, but Rin does let the key piece of information ship in that anger; “But.. Kirei said he murdered my dad!” pointing up at Kiritsugu.

The accused looks over his shoulder and sighs; “I wanted to, but Saber and Irisviel always insisted on other priorities like taking out Caster. Considering what we only barely prevented Caster from summoning into the river… that was the right call. All in all, we never had the time to.”

Rin blinks, processing this revelation and the implications thereof. “That backstabbing piece of shit priest…”

Artoria continues the story; “He, alongside Gilgamesh, went on to oppose the Overseer’s instruction to cease the war when he confirmed the corruption caused by Avenger. He is assumed dead, at the very least.”

The older Tohsaka girl takes a breath, pauses, and lets it out in one heavy sigh; “Okay. Sorry. That’s a lot to take in on top of all this.”

Shirou smiles warmly and tries to comfort her by agreeing; “Yeah. There’s no rush, though, we can take it all one step at a time. For now, I think Sakura’s done healing.”

Artoria nods; “Yes. She will most likely not awaken until tomorrow morning, but there should be no long term negative effects… of her previous injuries, at least. I do not know what to make of the Card, however…”

Irisviel grins; “That’s where I come in~! I might not be considered a part of this ritual for some reason, but I played that part in the last War, and a lot of the knowledge the main branch of the Einsbern family gave me for that role should still help me figure it out. I was a little worried, since it’s probably going to take me a while, but it sounds like you two are staying over either way, so that should be plenty. Illya~! Sella~! Are you making servings for our guest?”

Rin tries to object out of politeness; “Oh, thanks for the offer but I shouldn’t intrude like tha-”

Artoria backs up her wife, with a little more authority in her tone, albeit unintentionally as she’s just trying to be friendly; “You have just been through a stressful and traumatising evening, and your sister even more so. Please, let us take care of you both for today and tomorrow. It’s the least we could do.”

Rin is quiet through dinner, and Sella took Liz’s share of food up to her room to make sure she actually eats it, so the focus of the parents is instead on checking in with Illya and Shirou.

Kiritsugu is the first to speak after they’re done explaining what happened. His usually even and emotionless voice shakes a little as he says; “Using a tool I’d intended for destruction to save someone like that… I’m really proud, Illya, Shirou.”

What he doesn’t say, is that it’s finally given him a glimmer of hope after he gave up on blindly chasing his ideals. The next generation might not need a singular hero to save them all… because they might be able to protect each other.

Illya simply smiles and says she’s glad to help, but Shirou is a little more distant, so Artoria tries to poke the issue a little; “Is everything alright, Shirou?”

That startles the young man a little, and after a moment he just says; “I… just wish I’d been able to go with her, protect her from… whatever hurt her so badly.”

Irisviel, still in the lounge room analysing the Card, since she’d apparently not had much of an appetite tonight, calls out; “You shouldn’t be fighting any heroic spirits, but I have been able to identify a relatively simple spell that will get you into, and out of, those mirror worlds the cards hide in.”

She’d also figured out how to use the cards, but considering Sakura’s condition and what the Berserker card does, she decides to keep that to herself for now. It won’t entirely protect Sakura from the curse she’s now holding, she’ll most likely eventually find out the way to Install the card from someone else, but it at least buys them all some more time before the risk of that happens.

Rin speaks up, her voice sharp with concern as her mind keeps slipping back to memories of her encounter with the master of Caster in the previous war; “Wait… fighting heroic spirits!? H-how, that’s impossible…”

Irisviel shakes her head; “This card sees Sakura as it’s owner. As far as I can tell, there are only three mechanisms for that. Defeating the previous owner in battle, or being given it willingly, neither of which create a mirror world. The third, is the state the Card exists in before being claimed. It summons the power and skills of a Heroic Spirit, but not their mind or soul, and directs them to kill any who try to claim the Card. That, is the Guardian. To become the owner of this card… Sakura had to fight and defeat a Berserker class Servant.”

There’s a moment of shellshocked silence in the household as Irisviel reveals that particular piece of information.

Eventually, Rin tentatively breaks the silence; “We both carry a bag of gems with us… She said she didn't want one because she couldn't actually do our magecraft... Now I'm glad I insisted on it.”

Shirou was lost in thought, blushing a little as he wraps his mind around the feat his girlfriend apparently pulled off. Rin talking snaps him out of it, so he quietly comments; “Does that mean there are seven cards out there?”

Kiritsugu laughs bitterly; “Knowing our luck, Avenger tampering with the Grail as it’s stolen could mean there’s eight. Though, however those things work, him getting his own card would be meaningless, since he wasn’t a real contender in the third Grail War either.”

Illya picks up on the problem with dismissing the Avenger card as irrelevant, though; “If collecting all seven of the cards functions as defeating all Servants in the old system, then an additional one does mean Sakura wouldn’t necessarily be a target. On the other hand, Sakura is easily the most vulnerable right now…”

Irisviel smiles and shakes her head; “We spoke to an old friend at the clock tower. He knows a few people who can contend with Heroic Spirits even without Cards. They’ll likely draw a lot more attention than us.”

Shirou frowns slightly, a little of his dad showing through as he says; “So, what, we just go about our lives as normal and hope that whatever’s going on doesn’t come back around to hurt us? Or innocent people in the city?”

Artoria sighs; “Shirou, everyone involved in this warped Grail War is likely to be of this era. Servants, being from our own times, are a little too detached, get a little too carried away. I… certainly have to admit even I was no different, last war. That won’t be an issue here, so the people of Fuyuki City should be safe.”

Illya chuckles and decides to lift the mood a little with a playful jab; “Wasn’t Papa the one who got the most carried away last time?”

There’s a moment where the others at the table aren’t sure how to respond, but eventually Kiritsugu gives a tired laugh and admits; “Yeah, I used to be pretty wrapped up in my own head about… a lot of things. Without both of your mums keeping me in check I probably would have been a lot worse, too.”

He can’t entirely hide the pain, though.

There had been one more. It was only when she sided with both of them, the first time since he'd saved her that she expressed an opinion of her own, that he actually listened.

But he had brought a normal human into the grail war, and paid the price for it.

Shirou's request for seconds distracts away from that, and the rest of the dinner manages to proceed without a cloud hanging over it.

Chapter Text

Life begins to return to normal for the Emiya household and the two additional guests, everyone listening in shocked awe when Sakura relays her story of how she survived Berserker, a few days after she first reawakens.

Shirou, and Sakura once her health has recovered enough, return to their daily routine of learning to cook at a professional level in the day while learning magecraft by the moonlight, Rin rejects a call from the clock tower and places herself on indefinite leave to have the space to process what nearly happened to her sister, and the parents of the Emiya family grow increasingly concerned as Irisviel awakens pale and nauseous one morning.

Illya, for her part, focuses on her magecraft. She’d always felt a little disconnected from the more mundane life Shirou and seemingly his girlfriend also want to lead, despite Irisviel in particular trying her best to make sure they all had a normal childhood. She didn’t really disagree, what she’d learned of magus society up to this point is clearly contradictory and self-destructive, but this power was a part of her on an even deeper level than most mages would have, so instinctively she gets the feeling that rejecting that wouldn’t exactly lead to a great outcome.

The raw power she’d been given from birth due to the carefully constructed homunculus side to her ancestry was something she’d previously relied on, but seeing how much Kiritsugu and now Sakura had managed to overcome by using their limited reserves and abilities cleverly had inspired her to see what heights she could reach with a little more finesse.

A cold and crisp voice cuts through her concentration; “What’s this? Why are you practising magecraft out here, you lose so much of your magical energy to the outside world like this… And why’re you bothering to go through all those extra steps?”

“Ah, hello Rin. It’s Mum…” Illya has to remind herself that Rin isn’t familiar with her pattern of referring to which mother of hers is which, clarifying as she continues; ”Artoria’s garden. We imported a lot of flowers and stuff from her homeland so that she’d feel a little less homesick. I just really like it out here as well.”  Illya grins slightly at the chance to make a slight jab at the fact that Rin’s younger sister had pulled off something the Tohsaka heir herself couldn’t even imagine; “And, Sakura just managed something that should be impossible through careful technique even despite using a relatively basic spell.”

“So, you don’t have any specific goal, you’re just messing around?”

“Yes.”

“Wha-… We’re Mages, Illyasviel, that’s just not something we just get to do! We have to-”

“Reach the root? That’s clearly not possible in the modern day, so why not use magecraft to make our own lives better.”

“If everyone had that attitude we’d never get anywhere!”

“But they don’t. The Emiyas are no longer part of the clock tower for a reason. You know how inhumanely that organisation acts, and will continue to act in pursuit of that objective.”

Rin begins to stumble over her words a little, raising her voice rather than facing the truth of what Illya is saying; “B-but, our ancestor’s legacies… I… Father trusted me to preserve the prestige of-”

“Your dad tried to sell your sister to the Matous. He really didn’t seem to have the actual people of your family’s best interests at heart.”

“I… look, we got her back before anything happened, it’s fine.”

Illya doesn’t even bother responding to that, just rolling her eyes and continuing with her experiments on extending the range and precision of her control over her familiars without actually physically disconnecting them from her. On it’s own it’s not that meaningful of a feat, but it’s a requirement for the idea she’d had about blending her family’s two magics together.

Rin changes the topic; “Okay I can see it for Shirou and Sakura, they’re not the heirs of the family, but… Why are you rejecting traditional magecraft like this?”

Illya shrugs; “Mama- Irisviel, that is, just made sure to raise us as people first and foremost, not mages. She didn’t even want to teach us magecraft, actually, Mum and Papa were the ones to insist on giving us that knowledge so that we can protect ourselves if we need to. And when you’re accustomed to being treated as a person, of course I’d refuse to give that up.”

“Irisviel? Wasn’t she just an Einzbern homunculus? How did she end up with such radically different views from the main family?”

“None of our parents like to talk about it much, but it seems like the Fourth Holy Grail War forced them all to reconsider their views on our little secret society.”

Shirou doesn’t seem to pick up on the sadness and regret in Papa’s voice every time he mentions the ideals he used to hold, though. Illya’s forced to focus back on the conversation when Rin replies; “I… guess I actually get that, after what nearly happened to Sakura…”

Illya definitely hears another word muttered on the end there, but she chooses not to push for a better apology, instead smiling and nodding. “That’s good. I don’t particularly mind what you choose to do with your own life, but it was annoying seeing you lie to yourself when you hate the things it forces you to do so much. Just focus on leading the life you want to for your own sake, and that of the people you care about.”

“That’s easy for you to say…” The anger from Rin is a lot more playful this time, and she continues; "Well, I suppose I could use the practise too. Not very often I'll be using combat magecraft in a proper Workshop, after all, might as well adjust to maintaining the spells out here."

Of course Rin severely underestimates Illya’s skill with channeling combat magecraft through her familiars, and though reinforcing her limbs with her magical energy allows her to mostly keep up defensively, this still leaves little to no room to counterattack without spending gemstones to use pre-cast spells either, and considering this was a friendly sparring match, breaking the bank was probably not on the table.

So, Illya decides to try out the new spell she’s been working on.

“Time Alter: Branch Accel.”

Doubling her own time compared to the rest of the world was one thing, but she couldn’t sustain it very long without internal damage.

Spreading the spell along the physical tie to her familiars, however, allowed her to increase the impact of that short window massively.

The spell was still imperfect and somewhat hastily executed, though. Only one of her birds sped up, and only for a short moment, but the blast it fired as it returned to regular speed was able to hit from an angle Rin wasn’t expecting, sealing the match and leaving the recipient with a small bruise, since the blasts had been weakened.

It was Illya’s turn to be caught off guard, though, as the Tohsaka heir immediately launches “Time Alter!? I thought Kiritsugu gave that Crest up to the Mages Association?”

“Oh. You know German. Well, that was a bit of a unique thing we could do because I’m half homunculus. We kept a copy, Shirou and I both have it, as well as the Einzbern magecraft. Aaaand now you’re keeping that secret for us too.”

For a moment there’s a slight glint of jealousy in the other girl’s eyes, at the mention of both Shirou and Illya inheriting their family’s respective forms of magecraft. It quickly vanishes, though, and Rin grumbles a little at having to deal with something so unexpected, but Illya isn’t surprised when she eventually gives in; “Fiiine. Wouldn’t want Sakura’s precious boyfriend to be carted off to wizard jail or whatever.”

The newfound note of disrespect towards mage society gets a giggle out of Illya, who simply says; “Good.”

Rin, for her part, seems to have properly relaxed now for the first time since her sister was pulled into the mirror world created by the Class Card.

Chapter Text

Artoria hisses out a sigh of frustration as she summarises their situation; “Iri is ill, Kiritsugu gave up his Crest, and I’ve lost my powers as a Servant. Our kids are caught up in some kind of weird, twisted grail war where they have to experience the horrors of fighting themselves, not even relying on Servants for it… and we’re all reduced to cheering them on from the sidelines.”

Kiritsugu frowns; “Are you sure it’s not the grail, Iri?”

Irisviel lies on the bed, with one of her partners sitting on either side, so she can reach up to take both of their hands and shake her head; “I’m certain. The worst it got last holy grail war, I had four heroic spirits and I felt nearly about to explode. Now, it’s the opposite, I feel drained. It’s probably just a normal cold or something. Just… really poorly timed. Not that I was ever much of a fighter anyway.”

That doesn’t seem to have resolved all of Kiritsugu’s doubts, but Artoria nods and moves on to the next topic; “We can’t help the kids with these Cards… So, we should focus on discovering who stole the Grail. Make sure they don’t get taken by surprise when that other faction decides to make a move.”

Kiritsugu nods, relieved at the change of topic offered, and the chance to do… something. “That is the best move. It’s also where our associate from the Clock Tower, Waver, is at his strongest too. Though, if his daughter comes along, she might be able to help if any of the other kids get tangled up in this holy grail war.”

Artoria tilts her head; “His… daughter? I don’t think we’ve met?”

Irisviel winces and decides to explain now, so that Artoria isn’t surprised by this later; “Another one of Morgan’s schemes. Some cult in a remote Welsh village found a descendant of yours and tried to turn her into you. It obviously never worked, and Waver was able to rescue and eventually adopt her, but…”

It takes Artoria a few moments to process… all of that… particularly the disgusting and horrifying way her legend was used. Her sister truly did get the last laugh, it seems…

Artoria is snapped out of that particular train of thought when she notices one detail that sticks out to her; “Wait, descendant? Guinevere was infertile. It was why both of us also having a relationship with Lancelot lasted so long before it got discovered… And Mordred was still a child at Camlann… Who? How?”

Kiritsugu shakes his head; “We don’t know. Waver, Iri and I tried every avenue of research we could, but there is nothing explaining how that came to be. There is no candidate for who it could have been, which is where Waver theorised Morgan came into the picture, using some kind of ancient lost magic to force another family into that role.”

That sounds more like something Merlin’d do. Artoria thinks to herself, though she doesn’t speak those words.

Artoria is silent for another few moments, even after Iri tries to comfort her by squeezing the hand she’s holding. Eventually she speaks up; “Well… I am glad the child has a better life now, and I do look forward to meeting her. When do they arrive?”

Kiritsugu is the one to answer; “Early next week. Waver wanted some time to rest after a particularly frustrating mess he had to clean up. Something about a cursed train…”

Watching her two very serious partners getting more and more focused on business, Iri sighs, pulls both of her hands together, bringing their hands together too, and says; “Well, when I’m feeling better, how about we go somewhere nice? Just the three of us. A night to just be… normal people. Before all this starts getting serious.”

“That sounds nice.”

“I would love that.”

Iri smiles as her partners respond in unison. “Well, then, it’s a date.”

“Hello, Sakura Matou.”

It had been so long since someone had called her by that surname, but she wasn’t quite anticipating just how wrong it would feel, a shiver running up her spine as she jumps away from the source of the voice, looking back around to discover a young dark-skinned man covered in tattoos, standing where she was a moment before on the side of the road.

“That is not my name. Not anymore. I’m Sakura Tohsaka. Who are you and… how do you know about that?”

The stranger tilts his head, then lets out a disappointed sigh. “Ah, things really are different here.”

“Wha-”

“There’s no point explaining. You will understand. You just have to use this.” The stranger produces a card. A mirror to her own, but with the word Avenger printed on it. “There is only one possible hero you could summon with this. My Hero. And I know her powers will work excellently alongside your own. Call it a hunch.”

Sakura Tohsaka has no clue what this guy means, but for some reason the sight of that card causes dread, and a swirl of other, darker emotions, to surge to the forefront of her mind. Taking another few steps back, she shakes her head; “I d-don’t want this. Berserker is bad enough.”

The man simply smiles. “You want power, you want to be respected for your own achievements and not simply as the spare for your sister? Well, this will give you that power.”

It was tempting, so tempting… but she knew there was something more, something she wasn’t being told. “Why should I trust some stranger I’ve never met… particularly when they start s-speaking like they know me.”

“You don’t have to use it. But I would like you to hold onto it. Just in case. These holy grail wars are very dangerous, after all.”

In the end, Sakura takes the Card, planning simply to put it in the pile when the Emiyas collect five others so they can end this holy grail war stuff and let life go back to how it was before. She doesn’t want to fight.

When she looks back, the man who’d given her the card had vanished.

Shirou is wandering towards the shops one evening, taking up the time of the mundane activity by reflecting on his father's stories of the previous holy grail war, the sadness and longing he hears when his father explained how he had given up on his dream of being a hero to be with Irisviel and Artoria, when there's the sound of an explosion, a couple blocks away.

Pushing a little reinforcement magecraft into his limbs to get there faster, a trick he'd learned from Sakura but was still relatively bad at, Shirou of course races towards the explosion.

On the way there he bumps into a lady with short red hair, wearing a suit, but quickly apologises and keeps racing towards the site of the disaster.

He’s surprised to see that most people only have relatively light injuries, and as he gathers their accounts, they confirm nobody’s still inside the partially collapsed and burning building. None of them even saw who saved them. A little confused, but overall relieved, Shirou goes back to his shopping trip, contemplating the impressive work of whoever had beaten him to this situation.

Previously the idea of following his father’s old, discarded dream had simply been an idle idea for Shirou, and he was still a little reluctant to embrace it, since he had a normal life he also treasured… But, surely it was possible to have both, right? Whoever saved these people from this explosion must’ve.

At the same time she was unknowingly being praised by Shirou, Bazett was cursing her own stupidity. She hadn’t been expecting it after all of the myths about Cú Chulainn that she’d read, but The Guardian of the Lancer Card’s weapon and her own Fragarach both rewrote cause and effect. This caused a paradox that then collapsed into pure magical energy rather than resolve the contradictory nature of the attacks. The explosion had killed lancer and allowed her to obtain the card, sure, but it had also shattered the mirror world designed to protect people from the powers of these Servants. If she had acted any slower people would have died. As-is, she just had to be glad nobody died in the explosion.

And try to focus on that, and not the fact that this twisted grail war wouldn't allow her to save the hero she idolised from his unfair fate.

Chapter Text

A few days pass mostly peacefully, but one Saturday morning, as Illya takes a walk just to get out of the house for a while, the detection method for Cards she’d developed picks up on one… as she was walking past the school she and Shirou used to attend, of all places.

Muttering a couple expletives in German that would have shocked her mother, she looks around to make sure no regular people are in the vicinity before jumping the fence. It was a little weird returning here as an adult, but that sensation was only a small nagging feeling in the back of her mind. Her focus was entirely on making sure some kid didn’t get Sakura’d.

Their going theory on why Sakura had been pulled into the mirror world was her element and attribute, combined with her magical potential, and while that wasn’t likely to occur among random school kids, it was still a risk Illya didn’t want to see happen.

After about half an hour she’d mapped out the boundary of the mirror world… the entire yard of the school, and part but not all of the buildings. As she stands on the roof of the main building, overlooking the rest of the area, Artoria’s teachings about how to analyse a battlefield kicks in. The mirror world would be a wide-open area with very little cover. No matter what the card is, fighting it’s Guardian here would be almost suicidal.

And if it was Archer, well, you’re practically a stationary target in a firing range.

Then, she feels the boundary between the mirror world and real one, which had previously been more stable than Berserker’s one, crack open. Close. Too Close. Inside the building somewhere. Racing downstairs, she sees a very visible tear in reality. Someone had forced this open. Inside the building should be safe from the Guardian of the Card, so, curious about who would be so bold, Illya steps through the rift herself.

On her left, instead of the classrooms, was now a shifting, shimmering reflective surface. Beyond that she can feel the void, the realm the clock tower mages call Imaginary Number Space, trying to break in and erase this little speck shaped into a reflection of normal reality, but the mirrored boundary holds that back almost effortlessly.

But her eyes are focused in front of her, on a beautiful young woman, about the same age as herself, with pointed ears and long, flowing black hair. She’s wearing a purple dress and a dark blue cloak which seems to blend into the twilight corridors of the mirror world far better than it should. That would have been enough of a clue on it’s own, but in one of her hands is a long, straight dagger which shimmers and shifts with a wide variety of colours, but that clearly has the presence of a Noble Phantasm.

The other person makes an annoyed noise, and Illya follows her gaze out the windows, to see the Guardian of this card. A centaur, with a bow so large the bottom of it has to only just clear the ground due to the extra height he gains from being a horse. The heroic spirit is clearly Archer. And one that benefits particularly well from the open terrain.

There is no sound as the other person turns around, so Illya only realises she’s been spotted when she hears the gasp of the other person; “Why are you here?” she asks, her voice wary but otherwise a little too robotic and even.

Her eyes were golden. Not a light brown like Shirou’s, literally golden. Illya’s a little lost in them for a moment before remembering she’d been asked a question.

“This Card being here… it could hurt people! They’ve already dragged in one person who just happened to be walking past. We were just lucky she was able to save herself.”

“That is not normal. Your friend was also clearly capable enough. Those are the only people who are at risk, those who can manage it, or at least escape. Why are you here.”

Illya takes a step back. She was used to doing something similar to other people, but being on the other end of it was a new experience. “It’s our responsibility as the Einzbern family to make sure no normal people get dragged into the-”

There’s a flicker of emotions on the stranger’s face as she processes this information, but then it returns to that eerily even look and she responds; “Also not the whole truth, but still, good to know.”

Illya lets out a sigh and gives the real answer; “I used to go to school here, and I might be a little attached. I can’t risk anything happening to it.”

“A very normal, human answer. I thought you were a magus?”

“We’re a bit weird.”

The other person simply nods and changes the topic; “We should leave. I have the ability to defend myself, but I have to lower that protection to strike. You do not have any capabilities that would allow you to survive a Servant.”

It was stupid. Even Shirou with his head stuffed full of an idealized version of what Kiritsugu used to want wouldn’t have risked it. But… “You’ve created a rift directly to the mirror world here. Even after it closes, it’s going to be destabilized. It might not have been a serious risk before, but now…”

“And what would you suggest we do?”

“Distract him for me and I might be able to line up something.”

“Heroic Spirits have superhuman reflexes, how do you intend to-”

“A couple tricks my parents taught me.”

“You are… surprisingly confident that this will work. That or you’re being uncharacteristically foolish.”

“Honestly, a bit of both. You in?”

“What is your name?”

“Huh? Illyasviel Emiya, why?”

“Miyu Sakatsuki. We probably won’t see each other again after this, that is what the Assassin card is for, but right now… Take this. The Heroic Spirit serving as Guardian here is Chiron, so this poison will slow him enough for me to take action. Now, let us see how well-placed this confidence of yours is.”

The usually blank face of the Assassin card’s wielder shows the slightest hint of a smile as she finishes that sentence. Then she’s gone, and Illya’s alone in the hallway. Sneaking back towards the open window near the stairs, she begins forming a few hairs into a familiar shaped like a sword, gleaming silver in the dimly lit school halls. This form was a little misleading, because it was about to be launched like a projectile, and for that purpose a spear would likely be more efficient, but she liked to add a bit of artistic flair to her magecraft. This time, it did end up helping her, though, providing a far larger surface to apply the poison Miyu had left her.

Poking one eye over the edge of the window to watch, she saw Miyu try to sneak up on the centaur, but the open and flat area just didn’t offer enough cover for whatever rank of Presence Concealment the servant she’d pulled as Assassin had, so the centaur soon turned his back on the school and began firing arrows the size of spears at Miyu, though… they seemed to pass right through her without even making a scratch. Miyu, on the other hand, cannot even hope to get close enough to use her dagger, for every step she takes closer, he gallops even further away

Illya doesn’t have any time to process whatever phenomenon gave assassin’s user that immunity to getting hit, though, as the centaur raises his hand and stars begin to shine in the sky, despite not having been present in the mirror world a moment before. Feeling the surge of magical energy from the heroic spirit and knowing that can’t mean anything good, Illya begins an improvised incantation she’d never used before, finishing with the name of the spell.

“Time Alter: Branch Accel Drei.”

Combining Branch Accel, speeding up other beings in contact with herself, with triple speed, something she could not even sustain for a whole second. But she didn’t even need the whole second. She fine-tuned the aim of the sword, charged it with a little extra magical energy to sustain the spell once they’re disconnected, and launched it.

Then she releases the spell on herself and collapses into a coughing fit as pain lances through her insides. It would probably take a week to fully heal that damage naturally, but she begins magically speeding up the process.

This does mean she doesn’t see what happens next, though.

The sword, even though it’s moving impossibly fast, doesn’t instantly kill Archer’s guardian, in fact it barely hurt him, though for a mundane weapon against a warrior-class heroic spirit that’s still impressive, but the shock of an unseen attacker does interrupt whatever attack he was preparing, and his movements slow slightly as the poison begins to take effect. Even so, the opening this creates is barely enough for Miyu to dash forwards, close the remaining distance using Flash Air, and stab Rule Breaker up into where the heart of the horse half of the centaur would be. In a being which most likely had two hearts, it was a tossup where the spiritual core of the beast would be, so this wasn't a guarantee, but Rule Breaker’s other trait severed the guardian from his contract with the Card, causing him to instantly dissipate either way.

Taking the Card, Miyu returns to the real version of the school building, and to the odd silver haired woman, looking weirdly normal dressed in the casual western fashion that’d become so popular in Japan… a person who had shown such innocent motives for fighting, and yet had helped achieve the impossible, defeating Archer on terrain ideal for him. A walking contradiction of every lesson her life had taught her up until now. It was not safe to indulge the curiosity that evokes any further, she doesn’t want to trust again just to be betrayed like she was last time… but she could at least express her gratitude.

“This is yours.” She says, handing the Archer card to her.

“Wait, wha-”

“This victory would not have been possible without you. The prize rightfully goes to you.”

“Don’t you want it?”

“Not particularly, I was just making sure someone else didn’t get their hands on of the Class Cards.”

“Who?”

“The ones that stole the Grail and created this war. They wanted the prize. The Wish. I will deny them it.”

This Illyasviel seems to pick up on the emotion in her tone and doesn’t press that topic any further, instead saying; “Do you use Assassin all the time? I just… noticed you hadn’t un-installed the Card…”

“I have enough capacity to generate magical energy that I can keep up with the drain. This Assassin is particularly weak too, which helps. Her primary class is Caster, she only barely qualified for Assassin.”

Understanding and some other emotion Miyu wasn’t familiar enough with to identify show on the other woman’s face as she gently accepts the offered card. “Well, I hope the day comes where you don’t feel like you need to hide all the time.”

Miyu can’t even process the words properly in the moment, let alone how to respond, so she just uses her Class’ skill to hide and leave the situation. Still, she can’t quite get those words, spoken with a genuine kindness she can’t find a lie in, out of her mind.

Chapter Text

Later that evening, Illya lies in bed looking up at the card she was just given. Archer.

Even not knowing how that centaur, most likely Chiron, had fallen, Illya knew she had only played a minor role in that fight. Yet, Miyu had chosen to give her the card. The item she’s holding could reach out to the throne of heroes and grant her the powers of an ancient hero. From what little she could tell, the catalyst or lack thereof is built into the card, so either she'll get the powers of the Archer she saw earlier, or she herself would take the role of the Catalyst.

 It’s… ridiculous. The Grail system was originally designed to sacrifice souls, pulling forth such small fragments of the heroes couldn’t possibly fill it enough to reach the Root, even with the added need to defeat guardians in order to claim the cards.

Not to mention the amount of finesse needed to make sure none of the user’s personality was overwritten by the heroic spirit’s… Although, wouldn’t someone’s compatibility with a heroic spirit vary? Normally not to a degree that would be a problem, but Artoria would have the potential to summon herself, and the fact that they are the same person could cause that compatibility to exceed the limitations these cards hold.

Well, there’s only so much she can figure out with conjecture.

She knew the incantation for summoning a heroic spirit, though she never thought she would need to use it. Only the final word changed with the shift in circumstances.

“Install!”

Weirdly… the first thing she noticed was how slight the drain on her magical energy is. Miyu had mentioned Assassin being weak enough to install full time but still taking a toll on her recovery rate, but this Archer barely had an impact for her.

Then the knowledge flooded into her mind. Tracing and projecting weapons, in such an effective way as to replicate their full capabilities. The weakness of this would normally be long incantation times, but this heroic spirit had a method of accelerating his, and with everything that had been traced stored in a reality marble, it was a lot simpler to pull out a copy from there, to the point where it could be done in a fight.

…

Magecraft. Not even ancient magic, modern magecraft.

What the hell kind of Archer did she summon? Only a stubborn fool would hone one singular skill to this impossible of a degree. Still, a mage was more suited for her than a traditional archer, maybe Sakura or Shirou would get someone with a more standard skill set if they used this card.

As she takes inventory of what weapons this spirit knows, she gets the biggest surprise yet. Among his collection is one eerily familiar sword, shining with the lights of the hope carried by humans and spirits alike.

“I am the bone of my sword.” As she recalls how the whole spell goes, she can only think; Who came up with such a morbid incantation.

Her own familiarity with Excalibur helped her reconstruct the sword using this spirit’s skills, and after a few moments of focus, a near-perfect replica of her mother’s sword had appeared in her hand.

And for a few moments she’s trapped in memories as she stares into the golden blade of the sword. The main Einzbern family had been furious when Irisviel betrayed them, and had intended to use Illya as a hostage to force her compliance, but they hadn’t anticipated Artoria. She’d been rescued from the deepest and most shocking betrayal she’d ever experienced, by a beautiful knight wielding this exact weapon.

After that, accepting her as a third parent was the easiest thing in the world.

The spirit she’d summoned had been more skilled with bows, or using twin swords in a rough, undisciplined style compensated for by the magic inherent to those weapons, but with her own training and the enhanced physique of having the Card installed… As Illya settles into a guarded stance with both hands on the hilt of Excalibur, Illya knows. This was more natural to her.

Oh. That’s where the energy consumption is. The base form doesn’t carry any Noble Phantasms, so summoning them is not needed, but Projecting them still consumes a significant amount of magical energy. She still had ridiculously high reserves by any mage’s standards, but even just maintaining this sword, without any of the other magical techniques to enhance her combat potential that came with Installing a Servant, is slowly beginning to eat away at her reserves.

Actually fighting like this would drain her a lot faster, though using the sword instead of the more efficient weapons Archer preferred would only put her back on roughly the same time limit she’d estimate a regular person having. And she still has the versatility of everything else Archer could project. All in all, if she chose to fight in this Grail War, she’d be very effective at it.

But that’d be crazy right? Why would she do that?

At that question, memories of the raven-haired girl, and that one tiny glimpse of vulnerability she’d seen before the other woman vanished, rise to the forefront of her mind, despite Illya’s attempts to ignore it. Yes, she was one of the most interesting people Illya had met, but she’s not about to charge into a mage war, made even more violent than usual by the Install function, for a stranger she just met today, is she?

Forcing herself to focus back on the here and now of exploring this new form, Illya releases the projection, and as the fake Excalibur dissolves into mist, Illya opens up her wardrobe to look at the mirror on the inside of the door.

Her general height and build were the same, and she was definitely recognisable, but she looked like she’d received a deep tan, and her hair colour had shifted from pure white to more of a pink colour. That’s… interesting. It wasn’t really normally possible for her and the other Einzberns to get any kind of tan naturally, the one person all of the homunculi happened to be based on was Albino, so all of them also inherited that trait. There was a chance for Illya to not inherit it, with Kiritsugu in the picture, but that didn’t end up happening either.

She was wearing a simple sleeveless top in some kind of futuristic black armour which was incredibly light, and matching pants, leaving a good amount of her protected, albeit by fairly light armour.

Don’t get hit, I guess?

Over this, seemingly more decoratively, are a set of red sleeves which flow out into a frayed red cloak… Which is a weird fashion choice, but alright, and a matching red skirt going to just above her knees.

There also seems to be the ability to switch between the casual clothing she was wearing before Installing the card, and the equipment of the Heroic Spirit. This mechanism seems specifically designed to enable full-time transformation.

But, even though she liked the look, she didn’t want to take that step just yet.

“Uninstall.”

In a flash of light, she returns to her normal self, though, in the mirror, she does notice a single pink streak remain in her hair. Odd, but not altogether a bad thing, it does work well with her eyes.

Flicking the light off, she crashes on the bed as her exhaustion catches up with her. Healing some pretty serious internal injuries AND projecting Excalibur in one evening… was perhaps a bit much. Even for her.

Illya’s dreams are not her own. Memories of a Servant. Irisviel and Kiritsugu had mentioned experiencing something similar to this with Artoria, but it is surprising that she’s receiving them without even having the Card installed. Sakura had mentioned no such thing occurring simply by owning Berserker. Maybe Installing it once caused this?

The visions are choppy and brief, and most just show the countless battles in which this hero was summoned, fought and died trying to avert a worse outcome from coming to pass.

But one of them pierces through the blur of violence, a calm, serene scene of the hero as a child, listening to his father telling stories about heroes… And then the father in question looks down to the hero… And even though she doesn’t recognise the house they’re living in, and the haunting, almost hollow look on the father’s face scares her for a reason she can’t describe… neither of their identities are possible to mistake.

The hero she summons with the Archer Card is her little brother. Shirou Emiya.

Even if the exact nature of how she came to that realisation is hazy when she wakes up, she could not possibly forget the piece of information itself.

How, though? Shirou had a slight strength with reinforcement and projection magic, but nowhere near enough to… Avalon. It altered mum’s magical affinities to revolve around swords, with how long King Arthur used the sheath. Shirou’s Origin was already swords, so aligning his Element with that would…

It’s still a little ridiculous that Shirou could become powerful enough to be a Servant, but that would at least explain the powers she’d borrowed last night.

The Shirou she knew also wouldn’t damn-near break himself trying to push one skill to that extreme of a degree, the kid might have stars in his eyes whenever Kiritsugu talks about the old days, but he’s still attached enough to the happy life he has now that he’d never throw that away for something like this, right?

One of the half-remembered dream fragments, a raging inferno laced with curses, surfaces in her mind as if to respond to that, but she dismisses the thought. Yes, their life was clearly different to the one Archer lived. She’d just have to hope that difference was enough for her brother not to go down the same path.

Little did Illya know, she was in for something much more terrifying when she got downstairs. The wrath of a mother who was worried about why her daughter got home so late last night, borrowed Avalon, and disappeared into her bedroom. Ooops, right, she forgot to catch everyone up on the previous day’s events.

She was just lucky Kiritsugu was upstairs with Irisviel when she first came out in the morning, or they would have all bounced off each other for the next several hours.

Chapter Text

Miyu looked up at a sky blanketed with magic circles, each forming their own independent bombardment spell, and the guardian of the Caster card hovering behind them. The very same heroic spirit she currently has Installed, Medea, but in her primary class. And Miyu is just dumbfounded.

But… humans cannot fly? How is she staying up there like that?

Using the stolen Flash Air magecraft to teleport under the bridge and out of sight so she could hide, Miyu considers her options. She could not create a portal at that great of a distance, and none of her poisons or potions would reach that far in the air, nor could she throw her own Rule Breaker with enough precision to reach the Guardian.

Creating a portal in the open just to test… It’s immediately shredded by noble-phantasm rank magical blasts. Okay. So the only defensive option she has that could maybe protect her from a couple attacks is Rule Breaker, provided she could attack the magic blasts quickly enough with the dagger.

And yet for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to regret giving that girl with the vivid red eyes the Archer card. Something about how earnestly she’d immediately offered help…

No, it’s pointless to dwell on that now. She could escape whenever she needed to, as a holder of a Card… though the encounter with Illyasviel had reminded her to shut the door behind her so nobody who isn’t aware of magic can stumble upon them accidentally, even if the area she passed through to the mirror world seemed deserted.

Still, a card just left to its own devices would continue draining magical energy from its surroundings to sustain the guardian it’s summoned, making it impossible to hide from mages for long. So, she had to learn what information she could, and make sure herself or someone else claims each of them before the Ainsworths can find even one.

Reinforcing a rock, she drops it in between a pair of portals, accelerating it gradually as it keeps falling. Each trip through degrades the rock slightly, a downside of the Ainsworth’s magic that was relatively meaningless on the scale of a human making a single trip through a portal every now and then, but made this trick completely ineffective for actual combat.

Still, it might not hurt the hollow wraith of Medea, but without the spirit’s intelligence it will likely still see the projectiles as attacks. Moving one portal as far as she can out towards Medea, she attempts to fire the rock, now almost rendered entirely mundane after the magic protecting it had been stripped away through hundreds of trips through Flash Air in rapid succession.

The rock didn’t even reach the guardian, though, impacting against some kind of invisible barrier and dissolving into dust. They’d need either the power to punch through it or the ability to fly…

The power to punch through the barrier it is, then. Miyu turns her back on the spirit, waves a hand, and steps out onto the real version of the walkway underneath the bridge.

It’s at that moment she realises she has no method to contact this “Illyasviel Emiya”, particularly since apparently her close family had cut themselves off from the main branch... If using such terms even applies to the Einzberns.

Her thoughts are interrupted by her stomach grumbling, so she uses Flash Air to steal some food as she passes through Fuyuki’s new town, then finds an alleyway secluded enough for her to step through a rift herself, arriving on the rooftop of a high-rise building. It’s not a comfortable place to stay, but it’s functional as a place to rest and recover.

She might be getting a little cavalier with the casual use of magic in areas with a non-zero risk of regular civilians being present, but even as weak as her Assassin is, it still has enough Presence Concealment for regular people without much magic attunement to be unable to notice her unless she was standing out in the open in broad daylight. And, more importantly, hide her from the Ainsworths…

After reflecting on the few fragments of information about the world of Magi she’d been able to gather in her time trapped in the Ainsworth’s castle, she decides to head for the manor the Einzberns used to maintain in the woods around the city. It was abandoned after the last holy grail war, but since it was apparently the place one of Lancer’s masters died, there are likely still wards present to prevent non-magical people from stumbling on the place.

 Wandering through the castle fills her with a strange sense of foreboding, though. The aesthetic resemblance to the Ainsworth’s own certainly contributes, after being imprisoned there for so long… but this one feels even colder and emptier, like it was never truly lived in. This isn’t some strange whim, though, as she comes across a puddle of mercury mixed with patches of a dark, dried red substance.

The corridor, and the puddle in particular, is drenched in curses, the hatred and anger of the long dead man giving form to the wild and uncontrolled magical energy lingering in the area.

Finding a different route rather than passing through the corridor, Miyu finds a vantage point that seems stable and looks out over the forest, waiting for the sight of telltale silver hair, or the magical presence of a Servant.

However, neither one appears. After a couple hours a different sight appears instead, a short red-haired young man wanders out of the treeline, one hand lingering cautiously near his side. On his other side is a woman with brown hair. Both seem to be mages, but neither are Einzberns. Hired Mercenaries?

Well, it’s someone. Taking the time to carefully speak the still unfamiliar incantations setting up the defensive portals with Flash Air, even though she could probably do it much faster with Assassin’s relatively poor but still present ability to rush through incantations faster than a regular human could speak them.

Now that she’s ready, Miyu takes the time to walk back through the manor, knowing that any use of portal magecraft would likely alarm someone coming to check on an intruder. That’s definitely the only reason she refuses to use that power as much as possible.

The woman’s hand disappears immediately into her coat as the pair spot Miyu, but the redhead seems a little more reserved, taking a couple steps forward and asking; “Hello? Who are you and why are you here?”

“My name is Miyu Sakatsuki, what’s yours?”

The name gets some recognition from the couple, the young man easing up as he introduces himself; “Shirou Emiya.”

The woman still seems tense, but does say; “Sakura Tohsaka.”

 Ah. Based on what Illya said, she had assumed Illya and her mother had changed their name to hide from the rest of their family, but it seems that was incorrect. “As for the other question you had, I was trying to contact Illyasviel. I cannot defeat Caster but I would rather it not remain active either.”

“Well, you found her brother. I’ll pass the tip along, where did you find it?” They looked to be the same age, but she couldn’t really see any sibling resemblance between this Shirou and the Illyasviel she’d met the previous day. Strange.

“Anywhere on the main bridge of the city would be a fine place to pass over to the mirror realm.”

Shirou winces and sighs; “That’s a dangerous place to just leave it. We’ll have to see what we can do. Thank you? I guess?”

Sakura, a lot more wary, speaks up; “Why do all this? You met her last time right, just send her a text?”

Ah. Another relic of the normalcy she hasn’t been allowed, either by the kind-intentioned sheltering of her initial upbringing, which had good goals but still left her without the skills or knowledge she felt like she needed… nor the imprisonment by the Ainsworths.

Unable to entirely hide her embarrassment, she fidgets slightly before managing to reply “I… don’t have one. This is the best thing I could think of.”

Sakura’s eyes dart over to Shirou’s face and she quietly says; “No, I know that look, we can’t trust her, why would we-”

“She gave Illya Archer, why would she do that if not from kindness?”

Miyu shivers slightly. Did she really do that for such an illogical reason? “I-I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Sakura lets out a sigh, seeming to know the outcome already despite her protests, and quietly says; “Come with us, we’ll give you a way to contact us, if anything comes up in this Grail War business.”

The lack of enthusiasm for the war in her voice was pretty telling. Even beyond the apathy Illyasviel seemed to hold for it, simply taking the actions needed to prevent innocent casualties, Sakura seemed to genuinely dislike the concept.

Taking a stab in the dark that the active dissent was for a specific reason, Miyu asks; “Which card do you hold?”

Both of them flinch slightly at that, but Sakura manages to hold her gaze and reply “Berserker.”

“Berserker has already fallen? Good. The cards gather slightly more energy than they need to sustain their existence, accumulating it over time. That one might even be the most difficult, if it were left until last.”

“I nearly died! Several times!”

“And yet you are here, now.”

The group slowly begins moving back through the forest surrounding the old Einzbern castle, Miyu dropping back and falling silent as the couple have a hushed conversation between themselves.

Chapter Text

Sakura keeps a close eye on the supposed poor lost girl they’d found in the woods even as she drives the trio back towards the city, her eyes telling her a very different story about the young woman, that of a Heroic Spirit. Even with neither of her cards Installed, she had been chosen as a Participant in this holy grail war, giving her the vision most Masters received in a more standard war.

This girl was physically weak (For someone borrowing the power of a Servant of course, so that was still a good distance above what regular people and even most magi could achieve), but had incredible agility, and a magical prowess far higher than is typical for Assassins.

There’s also a weak aura of Divinity? That one looks a little different to the others, in a way that’s hard for her to pin down, but surely it still comes from the Servant, right? Must just be dependent on some condition being fulfilled.

All up, the girl was a threat. To her, not so much right now, Berserker could cut her down before she pulled anything shifty, but to Shirou, or his family? Absolutely.

But for now, the Assassin just sat quietly in the back of their car, watching their surroundings go past outside the window with a blank expression.

Shirou, in the passengers’ seat, is also quiet for the first few minutes of the journey, sending some texts home to keep them up to date. A few moments of awkward silence later, he chuckles softly and pockets his phone.

Assassin, however, becomes even more guarded, quietly asking; “What’s so amusing?”

Shirou smiles warmly in response, not even pausing at the shift in tone, and says; “Nothing much. Just got a fun surprise, is all.”

Huh. Strange. Shirou never dodged questions like that, he was always very direct and honest… or too embarrassed to say anything, in situations he couldn’t be. Seeing him this playful was… odd. But cute.

Thankfully this does seem to alleviate Assassin’s suspicion, though she doesn’t relax, instead staring out the windows, watching the people they drive past. Always alert, always wary… It was oddly familiar, actually… She was the same for at least a few years after her sister managed to rescue her.

Particularly around insects.

Miyu still seemed to be in the thick of it, though. For once… she might actually kind of understand her boyfriend’s hobby, and what he gets out of helping random people.

Illya arrives at the shopping centre a few minutes after the other three got there, but isn’t quite as familiar with the layout as Shirou is, so she gets a little lost trying to make her way to the store the other three are at.

A woman in a suit sitting outside a western-styled café makes eye contact and waves her over, and while Illya would normally ignore an interruption like that, this time she’s helpfully shown exactly why that would be a bad idea.

This woman is a Card Holder. Likely of one of the Knight classes, judging by the limited information the grail was letting Illya see. She also guessed that, like Miyu, the stranger seemed to keep the card Installed full time, since the Grail had never shown her any information about Sakura’s Berserker.

As Illya approaches, the woman speaks in a is cold, formal tone, with an unmistakable Irish accent; “Einzbern. There’s some things I need to discuss. Do you intend to participate?”

Even in coded language, asking such a thing in public was… certainly a decision. “My name is Illyasviel Emiya. Also, there is nothing to participate in. Just an incident that needs cleaning up.”

The other woman decides to introduce herself in turn; “Bazett Fraga McRemitz. I am… surprised to hear that, though. My source has been very reliable in the past.”

An Enforcer, great… “Who would even have that information?”

“The daughter of an old friend who unfortunately died eleven years ago.”

Ah. She’s connected, albeit loosely, to one of the other five masters who died in the previous grail war. That explains a lot of things, but also opens up too many other questions to deal with right now.

“I’m a little busy at the moment, could I fill you in on what we know and how we’re handling this some other time?”

“Sure. I’m staying with my informant, in the part of the church that’s been repaired. Don’t keep either of us waiting for long.”

Shit. Illya’s parents generally didn’t like to talk about the holy grail war, but her and Shirou in particular had still been curious enough about it to understand exactly why that was the worst possible implication for who Bazett’s friend from the last war was.

Eventually, she finds the small tech shop she was looking for. Miyu is the first to spot her, since, instead of actually browsing the phones Shirou said they were there to get for her, her golden eyes dart around, seemingly trying to watch every single person passing by. Perhaps she was a non-magus who just got dragged into all this, then, since, anyone familiar with the rules of Magi would be aware that nobody would dare try anything that might reveal their existence in a crowded building in broad daylight.

That still leaves the question of who she’s so scared of, but pressing her for answers too quickly would likely just push her away. Besides, they weren’t here to deal with any of that today.

Shirou interrupts her train of thought by waving and saying; “Hey, sis. Glad you could make it.”

The slight smirk shows all too clearly that he’s very aware of how unusual it is for her to offer to help him out with his random acts of charity. It was just a good idea to be able to stay in contact with a potentially friendly card holder, though. That was all.

“Any time. Now, Miyu, have you used a phone before?”

“No.” is the short and to the point response.

“Okay… what about a computer, or anything similar?”

“No?” Really living up to the ancient Greek dress, there… Now I’m back at Magus… but why is she so uneasy in a crowd?

“Okay, something simple, then.” Illya wasn’t really one for technology herself, taking more after her mothers in that regard, so she already knew exactly what kind of phone to get for Miyu; “Do you have an address we could put down? We need one for them to connect it.”

“I’ve… taken shelter in a location that does not technically have an address…”

Shirou interjects in response to that; “Wait, you do… have a house, right?”

Miyu is silent, fidgeting but refusing to respond, though that answers just as clearly as any words would have.

“Well then, you can come stay at ours~!”

Illya sighs and shakes her head; “The guest room is going to be taken when Waver and Grey get here next week, and with Sakura usually sleeping over in your room… that house is going to be a little too full, even if Miyu was okay sharing with someone.”

“Oh… Sorry… I guess we can’t help with that after al-”

Sakura speaks up quietly; “There is one option, actually. Your father’s old place. We had plans to move in once we were done with university, but for now, Miyu could use it.”

The conversation flowing so rapidly without her input seems to overwhelm Miyu, so Illya smiles and gently adds; “That is, if you’re okay with staying there. It hasn’t been used in, well… ten years, but we’ve still kept it clean. If not, we’ll just use it for the forms and that’s that.”

Miyu herself hesitates for a few moments before quietly saying; “I… will consider it…”

With that sorted, the phone’s purchase went smoothly, and the group split up outside the shops, Sakura and Shirou headed home to help the other Emiyas prepare for the guests that’re soon to arrive, and Illya deciding to get the conversation with the Enforcer and this supposed daughter of Kirei’s over with.

Miyu vanished into thin air the moment the group split up, using her Assassin’s stealth abilities to immediately exit a social situation she clearly wasn’t particularly skilled at navigating. Instead, she begins to tail the other Card user she’d seen on the way into the shops. Lancer or Rider was her guess.

Illya and Sakura had been… a surprise, in just how friendly they had been, but this “Bazett” was potentially a threat.

Chapter Text

Honestly, it’s kind of ridiculous nobody noticed the sheer number of “Gas Leaks” springing up all over town ten years ago.

The church was one such location. More than half the building had been burned away, mom was holding back to make sure there weren’t any innocent people hurt, since this place wasn't supposed to be a site of battle, and even so, repairs were slow going due to some truly wicked curses the previous owner had set down during the Grail War itself. Every time one was discovered, the Church called on, usually Mama or Rin, to pick it apart, and between that and the cover up, each one had caused a delay of months or even years. So, even now, the central third of the building was missing, with old construction on the left, and a new structure rising on the right to meet it.

The style was very different, though. The original building stuck very closely to traditional Christian church architecture, while the new work was very modern and clean… The resulting building is going to end up strangely proud of a history only a slim few will know.

And, waiting very impatiently in front of the building, is a young woman with silver hair and golden eyes, who immediately speaks up when she notices Illya; “Okay, everyone’s here… My name is Caren Hortensia. Welcome, to my Church. I just wish it had been under better circumstances, Overseeing such a crude ritual…”

Something about her feels… off. Illya can’t put a finger on it, but it certainly doesn’t make this encounter any less unpleasant.

Bazett, meanwhile, is the picture of professionalism, not letting her thoughts or feelings show.

“You two know each other?” Illya offers, after a couple seconds of waiting for someone to speak.

Bazett is the one to reply; “Not particularly. We were both assigned to this Grail War by the Church and Clock Tower respectively. We just happened to meet on the flight.”

Illya takes the moment to process and let go of the frustration at just how badly they’d failed to keep this whole anomaly under wraps, then lets out a small sigh; “Okay. But… There is no war. The Greater Grail was stolen, tampered with, and activated, but there is no Lesser Grail to complete the set, so there is no point in fighting.”

Caren raises an eyebrow, showing actual interest in the situation for the first time; “Is that not the responsibility of the Einzberns in these wars? Heroic Spirits have still been summoned, and without one, the ritual will never end.”

“That’s not me or my family’s problem, not anymore. We kept the ritual circle dormant and prevented it from reactivating like it wanted to last year, but that is just because we live in this city and didn’t want it to become a war zone again. Besides, all of the Card Holders I’ve met so far are fine not fighting. There’s no reason to escalate unnecessarily.”

Bazett shakes her head, ever so slightly, saying; “That’s a nice idea, but even ignoring the instructions from the Mages’ Association, I want to win. For my own sake.”

“At the cost of six other people’s lives.”

Bazett hesitates for just a moment at that, but even so, it’s clearly not the first time she’s been confronted with that possibility, since her reply is spoken clearly and directly; “That was always the price of a Holy Grail War, even if we pull those lives from elsewhere. It’s not perfect, I had wanted to meet the Servant I intended to summon for my own personal reasons, but I can still achieve my goals like this.”

So, this woman either has the mindset of a typical magus, or has deeply entrenched habits of playing the part, like Rin. “Those people aren’t heroes or kings or anyone who’d be okay with risking their lives, though, they’re regular people. Once they have a card, they also can’t get rid of it.”

“Killing a Servant, even one without it’s mind, is a testament to their skill. They will still be a worthy challenge.”

Not even a moment of hesitation that time, huh. Herself aside, the fact that this woman intends to kill Sakura and Miyu… “I can’t allow you to do that.”

Bazett’s clothing flickers with magical energy, and then is replaced with some kind of ancient celtic combat armour. In one hand a spear appears, it’s entire length a deep red, engraved with swirling, natural patterns. In the other hand, she holds some kind of shortsword or long dagger, which gleams just as brightly; “Then that would make you my first opponent.”

Well, there goes her hope to de-escalate things.

Illya slowly begins to reach for the pocket she’d stashed Archer in, but before she can grab the card, or begin the incantation, a long, multicoloured dagger appears at Bazett’s throat, with the woman holding it growling; “I will not allow you to hurt her, either.” Into Bazett’s ear.

 For a moment, the situation pauses as everyone processes their shock, with Illya being the first to recover, unconsciously whispering; “Miyu…”

Bazett yells “Assassin!” and reverses her grip on the sword, preparing to stab backwards and force Miyu away from her.

Caren sighs and raises a hand, the long sleeves falling away to reveal bandages trailing up her arm and to her palm. From underneath them, though, a faint red glow creeps; “Another unexpected guest. For your information, this church is a neutral location. There will be no fighting here. Unless you’d both like to find out how command seals affect living humans, in which case, be my guest.”

Miyu considers this information for a moment, before sheathing the knife and slowly walking over to stand at Illya’s side, not taking her eyes off Bazett for an instant.

The businesslike demeanour Bazett had held up to this point was entirely thrown off by Caren’s intervention. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, she sighs and most of the Heroic Spirit equipment vanishes into the breeze as the magecraft holding it in place is released… for now, though she doesn’t uninstall the Card either… but the sword instead reverts into a metallic ball, which she places back into the oddly shaped container she has slung over one shoulder. “Next time we meet, then. Until then, um, have a nice day?”

Impossible, that isn’t actually… a modern Mystic Code so powerful I mistook it for one of her Heroic Spirit’s weapons? Or perhaps… no, that’s even more impossible. How was she able to hold it so openly without even using it or expending the item she used to manifest it?

Miyu, in turn, is confused by the change in tone from Lancer’s Holder, stumbling over what to say for a moment before responding “You too…” and turning to leave.

Illya hesitates for a moment, unable to shake the feeling that there might be some angle, some way to win over Bazett… But, right here and now, she can’t find it, so she follows her unexpected saviour, gently closing the church gates behind the pair.

“Out of curiosity, why did you follow me all the way out here?”

“I tailed Lancer. You happened to go to the same place.”

“O-oh. Okay, then.”

“Additionally, I have considered it further and would like to accept your offer. Sharing a base of operations seems like the most effective way to end this war as soon as possible.”

“That’s not why we offered you a room… but okay. Sure, that’s close enough. So, if we’re going to be doing this, what’s your strategy?”

Miyu thinks for a moment, then counts with her fingers as she speaks to make sure she has all of them; “Claim the two remaining Cards, Saber and Caster. Then, find Rider’s owner and learn their intentions. Finally, deal with Lancer.”

“That makes sense. Do you know where they are?”

“Caster’s mirror world contains the entire Fuyuki Main Bridge. I have explored the rest of the city and found no trace of Saber’s.”

“Then it must be a small one. Berserker’s was only the size of a single building.”

That actually gets a small show of surprise from Miyu’s otherwise impassive expression, the only other bit of emotion Illya had seen her show, aside from when the girl was threatening Bazett to protect her; “I… had heard that it fell early, but even so, that card must have been hoarding all the magical energy the local ley lines carried and focusing it all into the guardian, to keep it’s arena that small. It is useful that such a threat was taken out first, before it could accumulate much power, but… if Saber is doing that, it poses a serious threat to anyone trying to retrieve it.”

Noting how close they were getting to the City, Illya takes a breath and tries to file all of that away for later; “Okay. Enough Magus talk for now. We’ve got to… Oh, for dad’s old place, basically cross the entire city. Want to catch a bus?”

Miyu silently nods, not really offering much in the way of conversation, but Illya presses on, interested in maybe learning more about her.

“You have any plans lined up for when this is all over?”

“No.”

This… might be harder than I realised.

Chapter Text

Miyu only had one bag to collect from her temporary rooftop base and bring over to the… strangely familiar building Illyasviel showed her. Inside were a few childhood toys, and a book she was not yet willing to open… something she’d found in the ruins of the Sakatsuki mansion after escaping from the Ainsworths.

A collective diary of all her ancestors, recalling every single wish they’d asked of their children while those kids retained their Divine power. All she knows is that reading it will change… something. And that’s enough for her to keep putting it off indefinitely.

There are more important things to focus on right now.

Tuning back into Illya’s tour of the house, she catches a piece of information that… would have been useful, were she actually a magus.

“And, I don’t know what magecraft you do, but the shed is properly insulated to serve as a Workshop. Bit of a weird choice, and it’s mostly full of clutter we couldn’t fit into the other place right now, but it’s there.”

Miyu still isn’t sure how far to trust the seemingly endless kindness Illyasviel and her family is showing her, but since their alliance seems set to stand for the time being, she should at least share the strategically relevant parts; “I’m not a magus. I do possess a stolen magical crest, taken from specialists in Displacement magecraft, but I won’t be using it any further after I obtain Caster… Assuming we are the ones to take her out, and you allow me to become the Card’s owner when we do.”

Illya takes a few moments to process that, then smiles and nods; “It’s only fair after you gave me Archer… Speaking of typically neglected magecraft, he’s apparently a projection specialist.”

Oh. That’s a very unconventional choice for an Archer Heroic Spirit, rather than a Caster. Still, with what little Miyu knows of projection magecraft, it seems wise to check; “That… could make things more difficult. Caster’s guardian was probably faking it with reinforced threads too small to be seen, or some other trick, but it looked like she was flying. Does your Archer have the raw power to punch through any defensive barriers she might have placed between herself and the ground?”

“Not with our bow, but yes.” Is Illyasviel’s cryptic reply.

Hmmm. On the one hand it would allow them to strategise better if Miyu knew who her Archer Install was, and if they knew who Illyasviel would draw for Assassin as well… But on the other, having Assassin’s presence concealment gives her a sense of safety and security she hasn’t had before. Nobody can find her unless she lets them.

Ultimately, she decides to leave it there. “Then, tonight-”

Illya chuckles awkwardly; “Actually, tonight, I’m bringing my own stuff over, or at least the essentials, then helping everyone prepare for some family friends to visit. Then we’re greeting them tomorrow, so…”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Sorry, yeah, it’s going to have to be then.”

“That is fine. I don’t see Lancer being able to touch her, and while we don’t know Rider’s capabilities, any flying beast would get shot down before it reaches her.”

“Okay… now that’s sorted, have anything in mind for dinner?”

The sudden switch back to mundane and normal topics catches Miyu off guard, but the newest question is asked just as casually as her earlier discussion of grail war strategy. The sheer confidence that implies is something Miyu can’t even imagine, and-… wait, she’s probably been silent for too long, right?

Illyasviel doesn’t seem to mind, though, continuing; “If you don’t, that’s fine, I’ll just get some leftovers while I’m home. Liz eats a lot, but there should still be enough for you, if you’re ok waiting for me to get back.”

“… That should be fine.” Miyu eventually manages to reply.

Turns out there wasn’t much to do by the time she actually got back home. The place was spotless before she’d even opened the door, and the culprit was in the kitchen cooking as well. Even Sakura and Sella were waiting at the table instead of insisting on helping, which meant Shirou was being particularly stubborn tonight.

More surprising was a second young woman with brown hair sitting at the dining table; “Rin? Wasn’t expecting you to visit again so soon.”

“The Tohsaka mansion is on the edge of the city. This is a better place to keep an eye on things from, when new developments have cropped up on a basically daily basis.”

So she’s worried about Sakura. Guess I should break the bad news, make sure they’re not surprised when Bazett shows up.

“Speaking of… Met the lady who found Lancer’s card. She wants to win. She's also an enforcer, Bazett Fraga McRemitz. I... think she'll likely offer a fair challenge, rather than ambushing someone, but she's absolutely going to be a problem.”

Sakura winces slightly, but doesn’t speak up.

Before the silence hangs long enough to get awkward, Irisviel speaks; “I’m glad Artoria convinced me to let you both learn everything we could teach you… We can’t really help out much, this time, but I’m sure you’ll handle it just fine.”

The statement, and the calm confidence it’s delivered with, eases an anxiety Illya hadn’t even known she’d had, but also opened up a new question; “Obviously Mum has been severed from her status as a Servant somehow, and Papa’s too old to fight as he used to… but you’re still better at Magecraft than we are?”

“Ah. I’m staying on the sidelines for this too, but the reason is a little different. We’re not fully sure of it yet, though, so we’ll let you know when we get there.”

Illya can’t help but worry at least a little after the dodged question, but none of her parents seem particularly worried about that topic, at least, so she lets it go and looks over to Sella and Liz; “Sorry I probably won’t make it to your match on Sunday, with all of this going on.”

Liz grins, signing; [That’s fine. We won’t be the only ones wiping the floor with our enemies.]

Sella interjects; “Liz, it’s a sport. It’s impolite to refer to your fellow competitors as enemies.”

Liz rolls her eyes, her hands saying; [I was joking. If they do become our enemies, that’s when I get out the big axe.], without any of the gravitas using such a weapon probably deserves.

Illya shakes her head; “You two… certainly got Mum’s competitive streak, didn’t you…”

“No”

[Yeah.] the normally aloof Liz admits, probably just because her sister said the opposite thing.

Artoria hides a small smile, but can’t keep the pride out of her voice as she jokes; “In another time, they would have made fine knights. I’m glad this time has a safer way to claim glory, though.”

Iri cuts in; “Also that halberd is not leaving the house until next week. Just in case.”

[Awwww…]

After dinner, and after Illya had packed the car with a week or so’s worth of clothes and such to hold her over in the other house until the Grail War ends, a quiet voice speaks up behind her;

“Um… I… don’t particularly want to fight… But since I can’t get rid of these without forcing them on someone else… Could we practise for a bit? Obviously, the skills come from the Cards, but… against Berserker, all I could do was run.”

Before seeing Archer’s past, seeing just how much Shirou’s own dreams have the potential to hurt him, Illya would have casually told Sakura he’d be happy to take the cards off her hands…

Instead, she nods; “I… wouldn’t mind helping, but it’s a little late to head out to the forest so no-one gets hurt.”

“Oh… I… um… actually might have a solution for that. Those mirror worlds… I’m not as familiar on the theory as Rin would be, but… With the Card’s help I think I can construct… a small one, anyway, since I’ve heard summoning Berserkers is… intense.”

“It’s not quite as intense as summoning a Servant, since the part of the heroic spirit you are summoning is housed inside your own body. Creating a body for them, sustaining it’s needs, and preventing the world from erasing something that shouldn’t exist, is most of the burden. None of that applies to Cards, but… Mad Enhancement is a kind of curse, and that would still need magical energy, so I guess Berserker is still the hardest to use. Speaking of this… Are you sure?”

Sakura hesitates for a moment; “I… yes. There’s a delay before it applies. I just need to eliminate the threat before that time is up. Even more reason to do this. I need to know what that time feels like.”

Language that dark isn’t something Illya expected out of Sakura, usually a softly spoken echo of Shirou, but… It is a rather stressful situation, so she tries to give a reassuring smile and nods; “Then, I guess, whenever you’re ready.”

Sakura quietly incants a spell, one that’d normally be far too short for the feat she’s achieving, but much like Summoning Servants it seems like the Card system is doing the bulk of the work for her.

To the two of them, it seems like any trace of life in the empty city streets vanishes, and those familiar crystalline walls warp into view, obscuring the empty nothingness that now lies beyond.

This mirror world was far smaller than any a Card had created while feeding directly off the Ley lines, but for a Berserker to get some practise in, it was plenty.

Chapter Text

Sakura watches as Illya first lays the card down in front of her and calls out “Install~!” as silver light pools beneath her feet and arranges itself into a distorted version of the Holy Grail War’s summoning Circle, the one albino half-homunculus standing in it’s centre.

The circle flashes blindingly bright, and as it’s light clears, the sight steals her breath for just a moment.

Of course, the young woman’s visual changes were striking, her red eyes were the only thing that remained completely unchanged, but that wasn’t what got to Sakura. While the combination of black body armour with red accent cloths isn’t one typical of a hero… For perhaps the first time, she understands what Shirou is always going on about on a deeper level than just wanting to support her boyfriend’s goals for his own sake.

So… why does placing the Berserker card in front of her in the same way fill her with a nearly crippling sense of dread?

“… Install.”

 The runes that spread from her feet almost seem to suck in light, rather than emit it, and the last thing she feels before everything goes black is a weird and uncomfortable sensation in her legs…

When she opens her eyes, she’s nearly overwhelmed. Rather than the two visual inputs she’s used to, which are… oh, blocked by a blindfold… she has dozens of others which seem to move vaguely around her head on some kind of instinct.

Then some of them act on the desire to look down, though her neck doesn’t move. And she knows, what heroic… or perhaps villainous spirit, she’d drawn forth.

“Medusa…”

Illya extends a hand and focuses on something, murmuring an incantation under her breath, but Sakura is still reeling as she takes in her new form.

This was perhaps the most monstrous rendition of Medusa she’d ever seen. Her legs were gone, replaced by a serpentine lower body, the snake hair was clearly a thing, and she’d been given no weapons whatsoever. Only claws and brute strength.

Was every hero in human history so displeased with the idea of associating with the Berserker card that they rejected her call, abandoning her to this?

Or was she the problem, and this… this… is the mythical figure most fitting for her?

Golden light wrenches her out of her thoughts, to see Arch-…. Illya holding a familiar longsword casually.

That… certainly made her feel even more inadequate.

Illya’s expression is sympathetic, though, and she simply says; “I’m ready when you are.”

Usually, Sakura would be able to remember that people mean to help, even if it doesn’t always work. Right now, though… There is only anger. Everything else feels… muffled, distant. She forces herself to logically reassert that that was Illya’s intent, but… it’s harder than it normally is.

Five seconds.

“On 3, then?”

“Sure.”

When Illya finishes the countdown, Sakura immediately tries to launch forward and into the fight, but hesitates when she considers the possibility of… somehow fighting the person wielding a sword with her bare hands.

Weirdly, though… Illya’s speed and strength were certainly better, but her technique seemed no different from the couple rare moments in their childhood when Sakura had watched the siblings (mostly the other one) training under Artoria? So… whoever this… supposedly Archer is, isn’t much more skilled with swords than Illya herself?

Expecting a swing in that moment of hesitation, she instinctively raises an arm to deflect it… and is surprised when she hears the blade clash against scales instead of biting in. Right. Servant.

In response, she tries lashing the tail around to get a hit in from an unexpected angle, but that’s effortlessly jumped over by someone borrowing an Archer’s reflexes. The Gorgon’s instincts as a predator allow Sakura to follow up before Illya had reached the ground again, though, forcing her to block it directly with Excalibur.

Neither of them anticipated the outcome of that, though. The projected weapon snapped clean in two like a twig, and Illya was flung clear across the street, over a building, and into the crystalline walls enveloping the arena.

Hah.

Okay.

Comfortable, with the form of a monster, she’d probably never be.

But she can work with this sheer, impossible amount of raw strength.

Ten seconds.

There’s an almost purr in the back of her mind, the idea of continuing the hunt feeling so… appealing… but this is training. Neither her nor Illya had ever been in danger before, and a hesitation like the one Sakura had had earlier could cost their lives against Bazett or another hostile card user.

Illya chuckles weakly and pulls herself to her feet; “Can’t quite project that one perfectly, huh? You doing okay?”

Sakura blinks as the conversation forces her brain back into human patterns of thinking; “I… yeah. It’s a lot to get used to… But now that I understand it’s potential, I should be able to rely on it when I need to.”

Frowning slightly, Illya asks; “Want to call it after round 2, then?”, this time conjuring a pair of swords and shifting into an entirely different stance.

Fifteen Seconds

Sakura can already feel her perception of reality beginning to warp, even though it takes a full minute for the full effect of the curse to manifest. Forcefully reasserting control, she nods; “That’s… a good idea.”

The next clash was much more drawn out. Illya seemed to struggle more with the twin swords even despite Archer’s clear expertise with them, and the boost they gave when wielded together. Despite all of that, the few openings Sakura left despite basically being able to see in every direction at once, were all well out of reach for the two short blades.

On the other hand, no matter how much raw power this monstrous form granted Sakura, Archer’s nimble and slippery improvised swordplay meant she never landed a clear hit like she had when Illya was copying her mother’s style instead, it was all dodges and parries.

Screw Berserker, this irritated her, so she began trying to tap more and more into the apparent sheer primal power this Servant was supposed to have, but when she finally smashes one of the swords aside, the slight delay gave Illya enough time to mutter two incantations, using time magic alongside the abilities of the Servant she’d summoned to speed through the incantation she needed to invoke another replica noble phantasm.

“Rho Aias”

Several layers of the transparent, glowing shield were smashed aside by a single swipe of her claws, but Illya used the kickback to launch herself back out of reach, throwing the sword she was holding and projecting another pair.

By the time Sakura’s count reached 30 seconds, that number is the only logical thought in her mind, and the desire to rend and claw and petrify burns so bright… Almost on autopilot, a hand reaches up towards the clasp holding the blindfold in place. The last shred of rational thought present desperately forces out the only word that could prevent that outcome; “Uninstall.”

As the horrifying power of Berserker is pulled out of her and back into the Card, Sakura was expecting the attack Illya was in the middle of to hit her anyway, since she hadn’t announced that she was about to stop, but all of Illya’s weapons dissolve back into the energy they were conjured from, and Illya uncharacteristically hugs her;

“I was getting worried for a moment there. Glad you made it out.”

She was expecting relief, the burden of mad enhancement having been lifted from her, but there was only…

Absence.

Complete emotional exhaustion.

And she hadn’t even faced the Card at it’s worst.

She’d finally obtained something that could be called true power… But it hadn’t given her the sense of control she’d wanted.

As the faintest hint of emotion begins to trickle back in, the thought becomes weirdly tinged with amusement, as she finally returns the hug her potentially-hopefully-maybe sister-in-law had offered her.

Shirou woke up late, the following morning. For some reason Illya and Sakura had decided to try a little light deadly combat before bed, so his girlfriend had come back inside bruised and emotionally exhausted, so he’d spent the rest of the evening taking care of her as best he could…

It felt awful not truly being able to do anything, though. They were both trapped in a fight neither of them seemed to want, and yet he didn’t even have the power to help keep them safe. He wasn’t particularly good at any of the skill sets his parents were able to teach, though he was at least tough enough to survive triple accelerated time without too much need for healing afterwards. Not particularly impressive when Servants are on the playing field, though. So, he’d thrown himself at making sure Sakura had been able to relax when she’d come back inside.

Even that’s apparently taken it’s toll, though, because he’s woken not by the sunrise like normal, but hours later, by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Sakura manages to sleep right through it, though, so he carefully extracts himself from the bed, throws on the first thing he could get his hands on and heads downstairs, finding the main living room mostly empty aside from Irisviel, sitting on the sofa; “Mum? Didn’t you insist on going to pick Waver and Grey up last night?”

“I had a little trouble this morning, so Kiritsugu took over. It’s ok now, though.”

Shirou frowns, not entirely reassured, but that moment of peace is abruptly shattered as Rin, in the middle of some conversation, or perhaps rant would be a more accurate term, opens the front door and walks in like she owns the place, followed closely by an attentive but much more quiet Grey, looking around the house anxiously.

The pair of concerned and very exhausted dads are the last two to walk in, shutting the door behind them, so his other mum, Sella and Liz must still be in their rooms.

“Hi, Grey.” Shirou tries to insert into the conversation. Rin doesn’t even notice, apparently having been set off by the mention of some rival or another from London, but the silver-haired girl offers a small wave.

 “Irisviel. It’s good to see you’re doing well.” Tiredness clings to Waver’s voice, much heavier than even the worst jetlag could inflict.

“Likewise. Sorry for calling at such a bad time…”

“It’s… fine. Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to try something. Even with the ritual sealed, the temptation was too great.”

The sound of a door opening upstairs interrupts the small talk, the tension even bringing Rin’s rant about Edelfelts in the background to a halt.

The silence is broken by a second voice coming from where Grey’s standing; “Oh wow, the years have really caught up with you, huh.”

As Grey rummages through her cloak and pulls out Add, intending to tell him off, Artoria joins the group, looking at the little box curiously; “Iri told me about you, but you really do sound like Sir Kay. I am glad I finally have the chance to meet you, Add. And you as well, Grey.”

Looking at the two side by side like this was odd. Perhaps a month earlier, they would have looked nearly identical, something he’d always struggled with a lot more than Sakura or Illya. Now, though, they look more like mother and daughter. There’s a few moments of silence as Grey processes that before she offers a small, relieved smile, and quietly replies; “It’s good to meet you too.” 

Like that, the tension is broken, a simple coincidence skipping past all the issues that could have come up. Nothing is resolved, but for now, both people involved seem to be happy with that, so he has to accept it too.