I am dreaming.
In my dream I see nothing but swords. Among the swords stands a single man. I cannot see his face. All that exists is the sillouhette. This shadow is the only one who exists in this hill of swords.
If this man is all that exists. Then what am I? The shadow stares at me. I turn my head and walk away.
It's always the same dream. Today I can somewhat see the face. I've never seen it before but it looks so familiar. The familiar face I've never once laid eyes on dissapears.
I Wake up the same time as usual. I head into the dojo and do my morning exercises. I finish and head into the kitchen and begin working on. I make Miso Soup and some rice. Tohsaka comes into the dining room and appears to have just woken up.
Tohsaka isn't really a morning person, she usually wakes up earlier than I do so she can start up in the morning. She drags herself to the table and I serve her breakfast.
Without her normal energy we don't get into an argument. We finish breakfast and it seems Tohsaka has woken up. "Your cooking could still use a little work." "Says the woman who can't even cook waffles." There it is, we realize we are starting it out of habit and we stop. "Izanagi, this is your last day in awhile you'll get to relax.. you should spend it with your friends. I mean, you'll be seeing me everyday regardless, so you should enjoy this time with someone else.."
There's truth in what she says. "Thank you, Tohsaka." "Why are you still so formal with me after all these years!? Call me Rin!" "Alright, I'll see you later Rin!" It seems she said something else but I ignore it and head out the door.
"Good, she's still asleep. That priest told me to meet him at the church right? I hope he can explain what this thing on my hand is.. he told me not to let anyone see it.. I guess I'm getting into something pretty deep.."
The boy readies his pocket knife and head towards the church.
I head to the Mitsuzuri household. I glance at the old Tohsaka mansion down the road before heading towards the door.
Their mother Mitsuzuri Ayako greets me. "Haven't seen you around here in awhile!" Tohsaka said that she used to be quite a tomboy. I guess that informal style of speaking supports it.
"I wanted to see if Akihio or Kazumi were here." "Kazumi just woke up, she's taking a shower right now. Akihio went out for something. He said that it was important and he'd probably be out for a few hours."
Great, what am I going to do.. I guess I could spend the day with Kazumi.. "So I guess I'll wait until she's done taking a shower?" "Nah, go ahead, come in." I sit in the living room. The walls are painted white, there's a coffee table in the center of the room and a couch on one side of the table with a television on the other. It was perhaps the most stereotypically normal living room I have ever seen.
Ayako asks me questions about school and we talk for about 10 minutes and I hear footsteps coming down the hallway.
I turn and see Kazumi wearing nothing but a bathrobe. This appears to be natural to her as she doesn't appear the least bit embarrassed coming down.
She finally glances towards the living room and sees me looking at her. She says nothing, her breathing stops and her face turns bright red. She runs back up the stairs and looks ready to cry.
"Oh I forgot, she likes to relax in the living room like that for a little bit before getting dressed." Ayako just laughs it off. I still think it's a little cruel.
I look like I don't care but I'm actually embarassed as well. After a couple more minutes Kazumi walks in wearing a sky blue dress acting like nothing happened.
"Well I came over because I wanted to have fun today. If you want we could spend the day together." Kazumi blushes at my proposal. "Spending time alone with you?.." she sits quietly for a bit. "Wow, the way things were going I thought you were never going to take the initiative."
I ignore what Ayako says and I wait for Kazumi's response. "Sure!" Her timidness dissapears instantly and she agrees happily. "Mom, if Akihio comes back before we do tell him that Iza is with me so he doesn't have to worry." "Will do. Have fun you two." We head to downtown to find something to do.
The boy heads towards the doors to the church. He hesitates for a moment and then enters.
There is no one in the room. He grips his pocket knife and sits down.
"Where should we go?" I ask her.
"How about to the arcade?" I stand there for a moment dumbfounded, who would have thought she would have a hobby like that.. well her mother's a tomboy and the only person besides for me she hangs out with is her brother.
We head to the arcade and play various games for about an hour and then we leave. She looks surprisingly happy. In the end we played a couple of Type-MOON fighters. She won more games than I did.
"I'm wondering.. does your brother take you to the arcades a lot?" "Nah, it's more like I bring him. I don't know why but I enjoy them a lot." I look at my watch, it's about noon.
"Hey do you want to get some lunch?" she pauses for a moment and her face reddens a bit. "Uhm. Sure. Hey I heard there's a great chinese restaurant over in the shopping district by your house." "Sure let's go,"
We head back towards my house and head to the shopping district. We enter the chinese restaurant.
Footsteps are heard towards the entrance of the church. The door cracks open and in walks a man dressed up in black priest robes and a small golden cross.
"You're going to tell me about this symbol on my hand and why I have it right?"
The man looks towards the boy without prejiduce. "That's right, of course I have to test if you're worthy of keeping that command seal."
What appears to be a european sword slips out from his robes. He throws the blade at the boy but the boy is faster, instinctualy the boy dodges to the side. The man throws two more blades. The boy dodges the first only to be moving into the path of the second.
The boy takes out his pocket knife and changes the course of the blade to minimize the damage. The boy rushes at the pirest but is immediately stopped by a blade near his throat. The blade doesn't belong to the priest but to a black figure with a skull-like mask.
"That's enough, I was just testing you and it looks like you passed." The priest says as though it were perfectly natural. "I will tell you about the command seal placed on your hand." The boy puts away his knife and the black figure completely dissapears.
"In this world there are people called magus, we strive to reach "the record" the place where all things begin and end. That command seal leads to one of those paths. The Holy Grail War of Fuyuki City is about to take place."
The boy still appears confused. "The command seal on your hand is proof that you have been chosen to fight in the Holy Grail War. It appears you aren't a magus which is why I'm telling you all this. Under normal circumstances I would kill you for knowing too much."
The boy understands the severity of the situation. For some reason he has been forced to fight in a war. "The masters summon familiars called Servants. These Servants are powerful heroes from the past, present, and future. The more well known the servant the more powerful it is, likewise there are their powers they had when they were alive."
The boy seems to understand that the black figure is one of those "Servants." "Normally a magus would use an artifact to summon a servant but since you are not a magus your servant will be summoned randomly.. however, I could shift things into your favor."
"How so?.." "Tomorrow night come back to this church and I will give you an artifact that will give you a powerful servant. Naturally my help doesn't come free." "So, what is it you want?" "The Holy Grail War is a battle to the death between all the masters and servants. Naturally this would include me and you. However alliances are usually formed to work our way through the war."
"So you want to work together until it's just the two of us?" "No, I'm not the most trustworthy person to be working with, if there is a threat in this war that is many times greater than us then you will work together with me to defeat it."
The priest's offer is impossible to refuse. "You simply have to agree. I am not to be harmed by you nor you by me unless such a threat comes around you understand?"
I agree. "Good then I will accept a geas and give you one of the same nature. I agree under the ground that you agree."
"A geas?" "It simply means that we are bound to uphold our agreement. It's a lot more powerful than a written or verbal contract."
"Fine, then I agree." "Good, I guess I should finish telling you about the war, if a master dies then their servant can join up with a master that doesn't. Of course the reverse holds true. The war is over when all but one servant is gone. Servants dissapear when they are without a master for a certain amount of time or when they take a fatal injury. The winner gets to have their wish granted." Wish granted? The boy thinks to himself. Though they wont be there to help eachother the whole time the boy knows he has made an incredibly valuable ally.
"Alright, I'll meet you monday night." "Come here at about 6:00 PM.. It'll take about 6 hours to prepare you." "Very well. See you later priest."
The boy begins walking his way home. The priest stays inside, the normally emotionless priest stares nostalgically at the stained glass. A small smirk expressing his joy is all that can be seen on his face.
We're enjoying the food, it's incredibly spicy. Kuzumi looks like she is enjoying it.. seems she likes spicy food too. She seems to have noticed her bad table manners as she swallows her food and slows down a bit looking a little embarrassed. I don't care, I would take it as a great compliment if she ate my food like that.
"Iza.. I think this is the most fun I've ever had with you." I blush a bit. "Well we usually don't hangout like this. Your brother is usually around too." "I think it would be nice if just the two of us could have fun like this more often."
She blushes a bit but gives me her warm smile. Any man would fall in love with her if she just flashed that smile at them. If possible I want her to keep smiling like that.
If it comes down to it, I wonder if I would choose to follow her or my father?
We finish our food and I begin to walk her home. We pass by the divide and I walk into the house with her.
Ayako is sitting next to Akihio bandaging his arm. "Akihio did you get into another fight again?" "Yeah, some guys wouldn't get away from this girl no matter what she said. I dind't want her to be in any danger so I fought them myself. One of them pulled a knife on me and got a pretty deep cut but I'm alright."
Figures, that sounds like something he'd do. "So you two have fun while I was gone?" "Yeah, actually I think it was a little funner without you around." "What's that supposed to mean!? Don't talk to an injured man like that!"
"Brother calm down!" Ayako just seems to be laughing at us. We talk about pointless stuff and we told him about all the stuff we did without him. After a couple of hours I head home.
"Goodbye Iza." "See you later Kazumi, you too Akihio."
Something's wierd. Akihio wasn't there to see me off. I Ignore it and leave.
I arrive at home only to find Tohsaka working on her dagger. "I always see you working on that thing. What is it?" "It's the special conceptual weapon that mimics the second magic." "Operation of parralel worlds? You have something that powerful with you?" "Yeah, I've had it for awhile. I'm altering Zelretch's design as to inject magic instead of firing at it. If I can get this to work we can power our jewels without using our own energy." I immediately understand. Mana can be used from the air and pulled from many dimensions at once. So by using that process the dagger can inject the energy into the jewels. An infinite source of energy.
"That would be immensly helpful for the war. So how close are you to finishing it?" "Oh, I'm already done, I'm just trying to allow it to both inject and fire how I please." She's done and already she's working on something potentially dangerous. "Well I'm going to start on dinner. We're having hamburgers." "That actually sounds good right before we go into a battle to the death. How romantic."
Her sarcasm aside she enjoys the food and gets back to working on the dagger. I have nothing to do so I head off to bed and I fall asleep.