Rei poked at her breakfast. A jellied mass, it somewhat resembled clear tofu or a block of pudding. With each prod, it rippled slightly and returned to it's original state.
Normally, being a morning person, she would have finished by now. However, the events of the previous night had left her exhausted...
"Do you think that our food looks like how it does because people in the past thought that's what future food would look like and the companies just went with it, or do you think people in the past thought future food would look like this because, you know, this was the logical end point for food?"
Rei wondered aloud to her breakfast partner, staring intently at the dish. Saber, without looking up from the daily newspaper, crossed his legs and took a sip of his coffee. Half-milk/Half-coffee , no sugar.
"I don't know. All I know is that if you skip breakfast, you'll run out of energy halfway through the day. And then, well, you're likely to get stabbed in the back by a knight or a guard or something…"
Rei gasped, her enthusiasm turning to horror.
"That's a thing that happens!?"
Saber nodded and folded the paper up, placing it on the table. Without a word, he returned to cleaning his sword. Rei watched with curiosity, humming slightly irritably as she did so. And when he finished the sword, he moved on to his bow. Waxing it to prime condition. Rei watched and tapped her fingers impatiently on the table. Saber moved on to the buckle on the satche-
Eventually, she slammed her hands on the table and asked the question that had been bugging her ever since she summoned the servant.
"Come on! Just which heroic spirit are you?!"
Saber chuckled and put the satchel down on the ground, turning back to his first task of drinking his coffee.
"I told you last night. Just call me whatever the hell you want. It's all the same to me."
"Even if I call you Sarah?"
"Even if you call me Sarah."
Rei raised an eyebrow quizzically. The universal symbol of "I call BS." Saber merely shrugged and finished draining his cup of coffee.
"Refill?"
He holds out the empty cup to Rei who, with a huff of frustration, took it and filled it up with more coffee.
Truth be told, she was still grumpy about what happened the night before. Having summoned Saber, apparently one of the best servant classes, she'd been overjoyed. When he so easily agreed to the pact, even more so. However, that joy quickly drained away as she found him less than forthcoming with even the most basic information. He refused to tell her his name, despite the standard protocol. He refused to tell her his noble phantasm or his skills, as well. He wouldn't even give her a hint! All because he wasn't 100% sure there weren't any servants that could read minds… What a joke.
*Slam*
Rei put down the cup of coffee in front of her servant and headed back to her seat to continue prodding at her breakfast.
"Geez… Who thought it was a good idea to make food all square-y? I bet it would be a lot more artistic if it was a sphere… And, you know, apparently food tastes way better when it's cone shaped?"
Saber nodded along as Rei spoke, making his way through his second cup of coffee.
"Anyway, yeah…." Without looking up from the dish, Rei motioned for Saber to listen. "I was thinking we should take a walk around town today. Take a look at, you know, the landscape… Maybe buy some… supplies or something?"
At Rei's suggestion, Saber sat upright in his seat and broke out into a grin.
"Mapping the area in advance for battle? That's surprisingly reasonable of you."
"Hey! What do you mean 'surprisingly'!? I can be pretty decent at strategy, you know!"
Saber shrugged and chuckled, exiting his chair and packing his weapons into his satchel.
"Well, in any case, you should finish your breakfast before we head out. You should be in full spirits, in case we get attacked by enemy servants. While you do that, I'll make my own preparations…"
….? Rei tilted her head in confusion.
"Huh? You know you can just ride around in spirit form, right?"
Saber scoffed, his face falling into the scowl of the visibly offended.
"Of course I know that! What good would I be if I didn't know something that basic?!"
This only served to further Rei's confusion.
"Then… How come you're preparing things?"
"Well, you know, I figured a good walk would be good for the lungs and heart… It's adventurer stuff, you wouldn't understand."
"Hey!" She smacks the table. "I'm an adventurer! Kinda!"
Saber laughs off the notion, shaking his head.
"Really? Judging from this apartment, you live a pretty well-off life. I don't imagine you've been in any true danger before, from the looks of things."
Rei motioned to object, but stopped upon realising she had nothing to say. Her eyes drifted downward, back to her breakfast, and she mumbled dejectedly.
"Well… That's true… But this is an adventure, isn't it?"
Saber thinks it through before shaking his head.
"Adventures have a goal, a reason to be. They're something you choose to do for yourself. But, last I checked, you have no idea why you're doing this, do you?"
Rei remained silent. Heheh… I could have said "Reimained silent" there. That would have been funny. Still, this isn't the time nor place…
"Yeah… But I've got to do it anyway."
Rei steeled herself and spoke up with reinewed vigor. Pushing her chair out, she got up and walked towards the lounge. Stopping in the entryway, she turns her head back to Saber.
"But if you're going to come out, you can't walk around wearing that. People are going to think you're some kind of weirdo. Even the retro-fashion guys will think your clothes are way too… past, you know?"
Saber let his eyes rest into a sarcastic expression.
"Are you really giving me fashion advice? Does what I wear really matter..."
"Of course! If you go out looking like that, it's obvious you're a servant! Or, at least, people might suspect it."
Barely mulling over Rei's words, Saber let out a sigh. Loathe as he was to admit it, she did have a point. Risking being caught out due to anachronistic fashion was… less than ideal.
"Point taken… Still, I don't suppose you have anything else I could wear? I couldn't exactly squeeze into a dress."
Rei sighed and shook her head mockingly.
"There IS normally a man in the house, you know. It's not like I don't have parents. You can probably find something in my father's wardrobe."
A half-smile twitched on Saber's lips as if Rei had just said something lightly-amusing or unexpected. Still, he remained silent beyond a grunt of understanding as he made his way towards the master bedroom. Staying behind, Rei picked up her breakfast and returned it to the fridge, uneaten.
"Seriously… What a troublesome servant…" She grumbled.
~•~
Time passed and Saber finally exited the bedroom. He had changed into a green jacket with a white shirt, a pair of camo pants and a brown baseball cap. Awkwardly, he tugged on the sleeves and pulled on the collar.
"Hey… Are you sure this is what people wear these days?" He grumbles.
To his relief, Rei nodded and clapped her hands.
"Yep! It looks good on you!"
She pauses and nervously laughs.
"...Well, it's a little old fashioned but, hey! You can pass as a hipster or something."
Saber, in response, sighs irritably and puts his hands on his hips.
"Well, excuse me, Princess. This kind of outfit is pretty much non-existent back where I'm from, so you can't exactly expect me to get the hang of this straight off the bat."
As he grumbles, Rei bounces over to his side, playfully jabbing an elbow into his ribs.
"Ah, I'm just joking. No need to take everything so seriously… You look fine. It suits you."
"...Hrm. If you say so."
Rei nods and puts on her coat and gloves. And, having scanned her eyes and fingerprints, the apartment door opens and allows Master and Servant out into a pristine glowing hallway.
"You have a lot of security around here…" Saber makes an offhand comment as they enter the elevator, it's door closing with a pneumatic hiss.
"You think so?" Rei shrugs. "I think this is pretty standard for a high class apartment block…"
The elevator comes to a stop and they exit onto a snow covered platform, it's steps glowing from the heat lamps built into them to avoid people slipping. As they descend, Saber takes in his surroundings. Plants resembling small pine trees dot the area, crystals of ice hanging from their branches. A grey, metal footpath covered in snow, footprints pressed into it to show where people had previously walked. Dim streetlights flicker overhead to combat the dull darkness of the city, despite it being late in the morning.
"...Hm. This is a lot of snow for March."
"Eh. I guess maybe it is, where you're from. However, here in the present, this is how it always is…"
Rei responds with a slightly dejected, matter-of-fact tone. It was true, this sort of weather was normal in the modern day Pure Tokyo.
Ever since the events of WW3, Japan was set to an almost permanent winter. Warm summer sunlight was just one of the precious things that they had lost, and gritty wet snow had taken it's place. Of course, it could be worse. Britain seemed to be struck with unending heat and drought, China was in a perpetual flood of torrential rain, and the less said about Australia the better. Some even say that the weather in Australia is dangerous enough to kill a person even before the mutated wildlife get to them.
...That war left scars on every country, didn't it?
Rei frowns as she lets her thoughts drift, shaking snow from her long orange-brown hair.
"I wish we'd get a bit more sunlight for once…" She whines and kicks the ground, sending frost in all directions. "Stupid sun! Stupid snow!"
"Well, it's nothing you can change."
Rei pouts and shoots a non-serious glare at Saber.
"Oh yeah? In that case, if my willing for the weather to get better doesn't work, I'm going to use the grail to wish for permanent warm weather."
"No, you aren't."
"...I mean, obviously I was joking. You didn't need to point that out…"
For a while, they walk in awkward silence. Their only communication being the soft patter of their footsteps in the snow.
"Hey, Kid..." Saber, surprisingly, was the first to break the silence.
"Hm?"
Rei tilted her head and looked at her companion as they turned a corner into a local park. The park was filled with bare trees, as it always had been. Maybe at some point long into the past, these trees had been filled with cherry blossom. However, now they were long dead. Frozen wood. Similarly, a frozen pond sat in the center of the park, the grass around it having turned grey and white in the eternal winter. Walking past it, Rei and Saber sit down on a hard metal park bench. It's rusted and warped, a relic of the pre-war days. One of the few, actually, considering how the upper-class area of Pure Tokyo worked to remove anything that could remind it's elite of those dark times.
"Do you live with your grandparents?"
Saber finished his question, surprising Rei. She muttered in confusion and surprise before shaking her head with confidence.
"Nope. It's just me and my parents."
"Ah… I see."
Somehow, Saber didn't seem entirely convinced. Still, he didn't question Rei's answer. In turn, this caused Rei even more confusion.
"Why would you even ask that in the first place?"
Saber hesitates, his mind carefully picking his words. Gingerly, he responds…
"Well… It's just that I noticed your house has a lot of photo's of this older couple…"
Rei paused.
Her expression gave nothing away. Her eyes blank. Whatever the reaction that would follow was, Saber couldn't guess. At this moment, she was a complete enigma.
"Pfffft…. Hahahahahaha!"
All of a sudden, Saber broke out into a grin and began to laugh.
"Oh man, be glad they didn't hear that… Haha… Oh geez… Saber, those are pictures of my parents!"
"Huh?" Saber asked, dumbfounded. His brow creasing as he scowled in confusion. "That can't be right. They look to be… 50? Maybe 60?"
"Ah, yeah… They had me really late in their life…" Rei explained, an embarrassed smile on her face. "Honestly, they were pretty sure they were going to remain childless…"
For a second, all is still, as Rei indulges her memories. However, she soon breaks the stillness. Her voice now more solemn and wistful.
"I'm really lucky to be their kid… Even though they were older than parents normally would be, they spared no effort in raising me. They were the ones who taught me all about magic and how it works… How to use it… I was extremely grateful for that. They were both gifted mages in their youth, but I was never gifted… So, it must have been frustrating to teach me at times. Even now, with all their help, I'm still slower than the rest of my class in the art of magic…"
She sighs.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting all they've done for me. I'm not that great at my studies, no matter how hard I try. Honestly, I'll probably never be looked at as a true mage… Still, they don't care about that. They tell me that magic isn't everything. But, well, even if that's true, magic means a lot to me. And it means a lot to many other people…"
She stops and turns to Saber.
"Uh… I'm not boring you with all of this, am I? You probably don't want to hear about… my magic troubles..."
Saber shakes his head and smiles.
"I've always been a better listener than speaker. Keep going." He chuckles.
Rei nods.
"Right, well… Having said that, I don't really have much left to say. I guess, I'm just happy to know that I have SOME magic abilities…. Honestly, I'm pretty proud of myself just for summoning you. That means that the grail, at least, recognises me as having magic circuits in my body…"
"Ah!" Saber smacks a fist into his open palm. "So, I presume, you're part of this Grail War for their sake, then?"
First, Rei cocks her head as if she didn't quite understand what was just said. Then, she literally jumps out of her seat, waving her hands defensively.
"Ah, no! No! No way!" She shakes her head vigorously. "They'd kill me if they found out I was doing this! They are absolutely, 100% against me participating in this war! They always have been against it… It's too dangerous, they say. They don't want me having anything to do with it, so… Look! The point is, if I was thinking of doing this for their sake, I wouldn't! I'd never do something for someone, if they didn't want that something done."
Rei's response, once more, piques Saber's interest and he raises and eyebrow.
"Oh, so then why ARE you doing this?"
...Rei fidgets, her eyes to the ground. She mumbles softly, as if confessing a shameful secret.
Why am I part of this Grail War… Why I'm doing all of this… I guess it's because...
"Because… I have to…"
"Oh? And why's that?"
Suddenly Rei springs back up and laughs, smiling politely at her Servant.
"Well! That's because I have a sacred mission, remember?"
And with a wink, she turns away from him and begins strolling towards the exit of the park.
"Anyway, let's go back home. I'm freezing out here." She chimes happily, as Saber slowly ejects himself from the seat.
With a grunt, he shakes his head, sending snow falling from his hair like dandruff.
"I don't get it…" He grumbles, following Rei's lead.
And, as Servant and Master leave their tracks in the snow, Rei begins to whistle a tune, despite the snow beginning to fall again.
"We better get a good rest. You wouldn't want all of our progress today to have been for naught." Saber mentions.
"Mm… Yeah, yeah. We'll need clear heads for the upcoming battles." Rei finishes for him.
Leaving the park, the duo turn the corner and head back down the street towards the apartment complex.
Without having ever noticed the pair of eyes that had been following them ever since they entered the park.
"Dammit…" Akira curses and stamps his foot on the ground. "What the hell…"
Besides him, his servant appears. Her long black hair flowing in the wind in an impossibly beautiful way.
"You can curse all you want. That was definitely a servant." She states her summation in a cold and matter-of-fact way, entirely devoid of passion.
"Yeah, I know…" Akira moans. "But… Just why did it have to be her…"
Archer turned away from her, ugh, Master and stared out into the snowy horizon that lay ahead.
"Your personal feelings aside, Katekiyo-san," She begins. "I'd say we're lucky."
"Lucky?"
"Yes." She nods and smiles with just a hint of cruelty. "Very lucky."
"After all, this gives us a tactical advantage."