Prologue: God upon the hill of swords
July 21st, 2009

It was much too wet.

That was all that I could think as I climbed the muddy hill, with the unceasing rain making my white hair stick to my face - and to make matters worse, I wasn't properly attired for this kind of weather.

Normally I wouldn't complain about something so out of my control, but I was already in a bad mood.

Maybe I should have just stayed in bed this morning.

-VARDANT-

I'd originally come to Moroboshi on Tohsaka's orders, tasked with investigating rumors of odd energy flows in the general area, but that had led to nothing but dead-ends. With nothing to do, I simply wandered the city, taking in the interesting sights of this new town (however few there were). Fuyuki was all I'd known, after all, so this was a novel experience for me. What wasn't novel though, was bullying, so when I spotted a bunch of high school thugs beating up on a one-eyed middle-schooler, I intervened.

At the time, I'd thought that they were ganging up on a cripple, and as a hero of justice, that just didn't sit well with me.

...of course, after chasing the thugs away I learned that I was wrong - very wrong - and that being a superhero was tough when people didn't want, or need, to be saved.

See, as thanks for saving that kid's sorry ass, he threw a motor scooter at me with one arm. Not a weak throw either, it was blindingly fast. If I hadn't reinforced myself in time I might have broken more than a few bones.

Anyway, after that escapade I decided to retire to my hotel for the night, where sleep came blessedly quickly.

The next day I asked around for information on the kid from the scuffle, finding, to my surprise, that the middle-schooler, 'Moritsugu', was an infamous delinquent, notorious for constantly fighting thugs and worse with little to no regard for his own health.

By the time I finished, it was pouring, so I decided that I should check up on that 'Moritsugu' kid and get back to my hotel posthaste. Thankfully, a local housewife had been kind enough to give me detailed instructions to the apartment where he apparently lived with his older sister. Somehow, I had a very bad feeling as I approached the door, but I forced it down, thinking the gloom had just put me in a dark state of mind. The fact that the door was unlocked and was pushed open with the first rap of my fist didn't help, as it reminded me of a bad experience I'd had during the Holy Grail War, when I went to ask Kotomine about the 8th servant...Gilgamesh.

This felt like a trap...

Out of caution, I reinforced my body; my hands were twitching in anticipation, ready to bring my favored swords into being at a moment's notice. And it seemed I was right to worry, as the moment I crossed the threshold, I was assaulted with the all too familiar smell of blood.

I knew this was none of my business yet I had to proceed. I wouldn't be able to live with myself otherwise, as what kind of hero ran away from danger?

And if I'd faced down Berserker, I could certainly handle whatever fate threw me here...or so I thought.

Sadly, there was no enemy to confront, no battle to be fought - only the absolute wreck of an apartment, with furniture overturned and bits of broken glass scattered across the floor. Blood, a brilliant red in the gloom, was spattered everywhere, coating the walls and floors like fresh paint. And the source of the blood: the body of a young woman lying on the hardwood floor, a knife sticking out from in-between her breasts.

If I wasn't used to sights like this I would probably have lost it, the contents of my stomach joining the life blood of the murder victim in the destroyed room.

At this point, I really should have called law enforcement or turned this over to the professionals, but as Tohsaka said, I could be a huge idiot sometimes. And here I proved it, as I knelt down and pulled the knife from the woman's chest so I could get a closer look at the weapon.

If there was anything that I learned from television it is that you shouldn't mess with a crime-scene.

"Aha! We thought you would be back to recover that!" A voice called out from behind me, nearly startling me into dropping the blade. It seemed that I had been lax in keeping watch on my surroundings, as I hadn't been aware of their approach. "The murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, eh?"

I turned to see a rather rotund man standing in the doorway, grinning at me. A second, taller man, stood behind him, his face drawn and pale at the scene that I must have presented to them.

Unfortunately, I'd never been one for plans or for staying calm under pressure (but then, when dealing with magi, most decisions needed to be made in a split second, as they were matters of life and death), as I followed up on my first stupid act with another one: I ran. Reinforcing my skin, I jumped out the nearest window, landing with an 'oomph' on the street below, with the voices of the men who'd ambushed me yelling at me to come back.

This was certainly not my day.

Anyway, since I was already in such serious trouble, I figured a little more couldn't hurt: I cut through yards, jumped fences, trampled gardens, and disturbed dogs, running in a straight line as I made for my destination, the thickly forested mountain on the border of the city, the easiest place for me to lose any pursuers I might have acquired.

Huh. It seemed like I was already thinking like a fugitive…not sure I liked that.

I prayed that the men hadn't gotten a good look my face, and that they would give up pursuing me in this horrible weather.

Doubtful, but one could certainly hope.

-VARDANT-

I could say without preamble that I absolutely detested the rain now – I hated it almost as much as I once hated Gilgamesh…which is difficult, considering how much I once detested that man.

It was cold and wet and miserable, and made my clothes chafe against my skin. And it was wet. Did I mention it was wet?

Worse, it created mud, and mud tried to suck my feet into the ground, so that each step I took required undue effort and gave off disgusting squelching sounds.

Thankfully for my sanity, however, I managed to notice the opening to a cave before I came down with hypothermia, despite the rain plastering my hair to my eyes. Yes, it seemed rather convenient, given my plight…but at this point I needed a place to take shelter from the elements, and wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Once I cleared the entrance and got out of the rain, I let myself sag against the cave wall with a sigh.

Too many things had happened today for my tastes, and without a doubt Tohsaka will have my skin for what I did back there should she ever learn of these events.

In my weariness, it took me a few moments to notice the crunching beneath my feet, or that cracks were rapidly forming on the cave floor, with white light spilling through them. Biting back a curse I tried to dash back outside and escape the collapse of the cavern floor, but it was too late. I lost my footing and fell through into the white expanse below, with my descent abruptly halted by a giant sword suddenly sprouting from my chest.

For a moment all I could do was wonder how I'd made that, as I didn't recall having a blade like that among my arsenal.

And then I realized that that wasn't one of my blades - I had been impaled from below.

But…why didn't I feel any pain?

Well, I guess maybe the shock and my fading consciousness conspired to give me peace for once in my life - and that I was about to die. Maybe...but then I can finally see her.

…Saber…

-VARDANT-

When I woke up, my head was spinning. My only thought was that Berserker couldn't be alive again, as I didn't know anything else that could hurt me so badly. My body felt sluggish in responding to the signals I sent it, as if it was the first time it ever moved. I was sore everywhere, from my hands to my legs, my stomach, my face…my hair, and there was this odd warm pain pulsing through my being in time with my heartbeat.

I needed to make sure where I was, but when I got up to look around a lock of red hair fell into my face, so I simply brushed it away as an annoyance.

Wait. Red hair? My hair hasn't been red for years!

Inspecting the rest of my body I noticed that my skin was of a lighter shade than it used to be. Healed somehow, even though the damage there was supposedly irreversible! One scenario after another raced through my mind, driving me into a near panic about that could do something like that until I looked up and saw it.

In that moment, I knew that was the thing would change my life. I saw, for the first time, a god.

A god lying upon a hill of swords.

-VARDANT-

July 18th, 2009

Sunlight streamed through the window of Shirou's room, rousing the man from his rather...enticing dream.

"Damn you, I was just about to-" the magus groused, but he was interrupted before he could finish his thought.

"...about to what, Emiya-kun?" A dangerous, overly saccharine voice inquired.

Ah. That cold voice, a sound straight out of his nightmares.

He began to pray to a God he didn't think existed - or perhaps to some incarnation of Akasha - that it wasn't who he thought it was: the Red Devil, the Tsundere Terror, Tohsaka Rin! Surely she couldn't be back from London already, proceeding to barge into his house without even calling ahead to let him know she was coming. Why, he didn't even have breakfast prepared!

Alas, when Shirou looked to the side of his futon, he found her sitting there, serenely smiling like a cat that had caught the canary.

"...what are you doing in my room?" Shirou managed to ask, as in his state of shock, there wasn't much else he could think of.

Unfortunately for him, the query had a rather negative effect.

"What, you're complaining about a beautiful woman waking you up in the morning?" Rin chuckled mirthlessly. "What kind of man are you?"

That was the last thing Shirou heard before getting a foot to the face, knocking him back into the world of dreams.

-VARDANT-

What could I say about the woman who became my teacher, closest confidant, and friend?

Tohsaka Rin, in addition to being the idol of the high school we went to, was also a magus of great power. After the conclusion of the Fifth Grail War, she moved to London, where she continued her studies at the Clock Tower, the most prestigious center for magical learning in the world. I wasn't terribly surprised that they'd accepted her; just that she asked me to come with her as her apprentice.

I had declined because I felt that I should stay here at home. It wasn't because of anything concrete…just a gut feeling, and I'd learned to trust my instincts.

We sat at the table eating the breakfast that I (eventually) prepared after waking. Tohsaka rarely visited, as she was busy with her research most of the time, and every visit filled me with apprehension, especially now. After all, there was only one reason that she would come back to Fuyuki, a place that held far too many bitter memories for her.

She must have gathered some important information.

Information on the incident of three years ago, when Matou Sakura vanished.

-VARDANT-

We first noticed that Sakura stopped coming over to my house a few days after the ceremony - which, while unusual, I chalked it up to her being busy with college preparations. As the days turned into weeks, turned into months, and no one else had seen her either, I started to worry, and since Tohsaka had revealed that they were really sisters after we had graduated, I contact her about what was troubling me.

She came as fast as she could, since despite her tough exterior she really cared about her younger sister.

Together we went to the Matou household, and there we felt something wrong, something twisted and corrupted emanating from the building. With great caution we entered, searching through all the rooms anything that might lead us to Sakura, trivial or not. We had to be on guard, as entering a magus' stronghold was akin to declaring war on him or her, and we had no idea who else might be here.

We did, oddly enough, find a room that seemed to belong to a powerful magus, with ritual symbols and the like scattered about, but all the important documents and artifacts had been gathered up and taken away, with the imprints of their dust patterns still remaining. After that detour though, we didn't find anything else out of place until we came to the mysterious door next to Sakura's room, and the stairway that lay within.

I would never forget what we found there for the rest of my life.

Worms, disgusting twisted beings, writhed upon the floor. Countless numbers of them surrounded us, filling every crevice with their cloying smell of rot and decay

Tohsaka recognized them.

She called them Crest Worms, and told me exactly what they were, and what they would do.

Absolutely horrid. Filthy horrid disgusting horrid terrible evil rotten things! What nightmare was this? Sakura had been living in this accursed place? Who did this to her? Who would do this to her?

And how did I not ever notice? What kind of hero was I, to not even see the pain of those close to me?

I was, without a doubt, a complete failure.

We decided to set the place on fire, burned it all right down to the ground, with us watching to make sure the house completely immolated itself. Before we left though, Tohsaka picked up an odd energy signature permeating the lot, one that resembled the presence of a Ghost Liner – something that was not too different from a Heroic Spirit…apparently – though Tohsaka said it seemed to lack any sort of will. Although I had no idea how one could feel something like that, I trusted her observation. She was rarely ever wrong when it came to things like this.

We thought that it had to be related to the absence of anyone at the Matou household, as there would be no other reason for it to be there, and so we tried to find what it was. But no matter how much we searched and compared to other signatures, we never came up with anything new without limited resources.

Soon enough, Tohsaka left for London again in order to have greater resources to continue the search, coming back every so often to report important findings to me before leaving almost immediately. I did worry about some of the methods she was using, as they were quite risky. If she incurred a debt with the wrong person…but there was nothing I could do. Rin was always stubborn, even more than me.

This pattern repeated itself for three years. Until now.

-VARDANT-

Shirou sighed as he rubbed his temples. "So, what you are saying is that there are two places radiating energy similar to the presence we detected all those years ago?"

"Exactly." Tohsaka nodded, as if proud that Shirou was capable of making that simple observation.

"So, get to the point, where are they?" Shirou asked as he brushed his hair out of his eyes - newly white, as a consequence of the stress of unlocking a Reality Marble a few months prior. (Of course, he couldn't actually do much with it. But that was another matter entirely.)

He idly wondered if something similar had happened to Tohsaka's former Servant, Archer.

"One is located in a remote area known as Akoro, and the other is in a city to the south of Fuyuki known as Moroboshi." Tohsaka replied with some annoyance in her voice. Bringing out a folded paper map from her pocket, she smoothed it out on the table. Pointing at two locations, she stared into my eyes. "I'll head to Akoro while you take Moroboshi, alright?"

Her tone left no room for questions.

"Y-yes ma'am!" Shirou hastily saluted.

Tohsaka smiled for a moment, but her expression quickly grew grim.

"Good boy, we leave in the evening. Prepare for the worst."

Shirou grew quiet at that remark, as he knew the moment of truth had come at last. In his heart of hearts, he knew that the possibility of finding Sakura was low, compared to that of charging into mortal danger without reward - just last time he had ended up fighting for his life against a Dead Apostle - but he didn't have a choice.

But he couldn't let this go, he owed Sakura that much.

So the man stood up and began to clear away the dishes, talking all the while.

"All right, but you take care of yourself too. It won't be of any use if Sakura's sister gets herself killed while looking for her."

At those words, Tohsaka snorted, remembering her partner's impetuous nature. "You hypocrite, why don't you take your own advice? You're the one who is more likely to fly face-first into danger."

They both laughed, savoring this peaceful moment while it lasted.

Both knew that what they were getting into could kill them, or worse, change them into something unrecognizable - but they couldn't give up, wouldn't give up.

For her sake, they would fight.

[Break]

Author's Note: Well, here is my first fic, for better or worse it turned out to be a crossover between Fate and the Linebarrels of Iron manga. I hope it turned out okay...I really do. You don't have to worry about Moritsugu, I have plans for him to appear later...but exactly when and where is a secret. This chapter was originally in two parts, the prologue and the first chapter which I posted on the Beast's Lair. I put them together here because I wanted all the chapters to be of similar length, though this might end up with longer chapters as I go on...I hope it didn't disturb the flow too much.

So in the end, I hope you like~

Author's Note 2: Well I rewrote the first part of this chapter because I discovered that I am better at first person than third. And I added a bit to the second part as well. I hope you will take to them better.

Author's Note 3: Thanks to AlfheimWanderer for looking over and editing this chapter. So yes, this has gotten rewritten for a second time.