The gravel cracked under Yukiko's feet as she walked through Fuyuki City.

She didn't know where to go. All she knew was that she had to get away from her Master's body, and that she had to get ready for the Holy Grail War.

She didn't know anything, in fact, right now. There was only guilt. Guilt from killing her Master.

Sure, it wasn't like she wanted to kill him. It happened while she was possessed by Amaterasu. She had nothing to do with it. She could keep telling herself this.

But in her heart, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had done something wrong. Something irreversible. This thought pulled at her, and she sought comfort.

She went to the train station, and found the ticket counter. She managed to get an express ticket to Inaba.

She arrived at the Amagi Inn.

She saw her mother bending down, uprooting weeds in the garden. So unassuming... but this woman was probably the foremost Magus in the entire country, outside those who had come here for the Grail War.

She watched her for a while, unsure what to say. Should she even say anything at all? She almost considered leaving.

"Excuse me? May I help you, young lady?" Her mother called to her.

Yukiko sighed. Maybe she was making a mistake. Did she really have time to waste on this?

No, she needed it. If she didn't come here, and see her mother, she would fall under the weight of anxiety long before she would get the chance to fight an enemy Servant. She needed her mother's words of comfort.

"Hi, I was wondering if I could stay at the inn for a night? I've been traveling, and I'm awfully tired..."

"Yes, of course you can. I'm Minako Amagi; may I ask your name?"

"Yukiko," she said.

"Come inside, Yukiko-chan. We'll see if we can't find a room for you."

Minako led her to the front door. "Follow me," she said.

"Thank you very much." Yukiko bowed slightly, and followed her mother into the inn.

Even that small interaction with her mother made Yukiko feel a little better. Walking through the familiar passageways of the inn only confirmed that she had made the right choice coming here.

The hallways reverberated with memories, as Minako led Yukiko to a room by the cellar.

Minako opened the door, and she pulled up some wooden chairs in front of a wooden table. Two seats facing each other, for her and Yukiko.

Minako sat down, and Yukiko did the same.

Minako clasped her hands, interlocking her still somewhat delicate fingers, and placed them on the table. It was almost a conspiratorial gesture. "So, what brings you to Inaba? It's not the most popular tourist destination," she said.

"I... I had some time on my hands, and I wanted to see some of the more out-of-the-way parts of this country. I have lived mostly in various large cities until now, and I felt there was something I had been missing in my life. I guess you could say I came out here to try to reclaim that, for a little while, at least. After tomorrow I'll likely be heading somewhere else, but while I'm here I want to enjoy all that this quaint little town has to offer," Yukiko said.

"I see," Minako said. She unclasped her hands and brought them off the table. She then leaned back in her chair. "Anywhere in particular you want to go after you leave here?"

"No, not really," Yukiko said. "I haven't thought that far ahead. I'd really prefer to make my plans up as I go along, rather than adhering to a particular itinerary. I feel there's more freedom in that approach, wouldn't you say?"

Minako chuckled. "I suppose you're right, from one perspective. Have you been travelling long?"

"Not really, I only left home yesterday." Sensing the relaxed atmosphere in the room, she stretched her arms a bit. "It feels like it's been forever, though. So much has happened."

"Isn't it always so," Minako said. "We are so accustomed to being at home, that the moment we leave it's as if our whole world is turned upside down, and there's a kind of a longing to just go back. I know what that's like... It can be too strong to resist, sometimes. And when that happens, you can end up stuck where you are. Never leaving, you're always safe; but you can never do anything either. Like a bird in a cage, you just sing and die."

"Isn't that... erm..."

"What? Go on, say it."

"Well," Yukiko took a deep breath. "Isn't that a bit of a morbid way to describe it? I mean, true, it's not a very eventful life, but you can still do great things staying in one place. You can focus on yourself. You can work hard to build a community you can be proud of. You can get married, have children, and play with them and love them. Aren't those perfectly valid goals? Is that really such a terrible way to live?"

"Hold on a second." Minako got up, and bent down to a small cabinet that had been obscured by the darkness of her shadow. There was a noise of a lock opening, the tumblers inside dancing to get out of the path of the ridges on a key. "Ah, there we are." She brought a bottle of alcohol with her back to the table.

Minako slammed the bottle on the table, took the glasses off the top of it, and began to open it with a bottle opener that she took out of her pocket. With a grunt, she got the bottle open, and poured the thick clear liquid into one of the two glasses. She took the other one and held it towards Yukiko, offering her some.

Yukiko refused.

Minako shrugged, put the bottle and the unused glass down on the table, and drank some of her own glass. She put it back down on the table, half full. "If that's your choice, I'll respect that. But you know," she leaned on her elbow and pointed her finger at Yukiko's face, "there is a difference between respecting another person's choices, and not caring about what happens to them."

She relaxed in her chair.

"Look, it's none of my business, really. It really isn't," she continued. "But speaking as a concerned adult to a young woman, I have to say that you should learn from my mistakes. If you don't, you'll repeat them. It's not like every time you run the same course, something different happens. The world is static, deterministic. If you put the same thing into it, you'll get the same thing out of it. The future is undetermined, yes, but that's only because the input is not yet decided. Once you decide what you want to do, and you do it, the world responds in its own way according to a fixed set of rules that never have, nor ever will change. You can look at it as a sort of convex mirror; what a convex mirror reflects will always be different depending on what's in front of it, but once you put an object in front of it it will always reflect it in exactly the same way, and with exactly the same distortion. It's not possible to switch the mirror for another one."

She paused.

"There is only one world, at least on this side of the abyss of death. And unless you cross that - and who can, and stay themselves? - you cannot move to another world. The mirror will always remain the same, and the thing you have to do if you want to achieve a desired reflection, is to figure out exactly what you need to put in front of that mirror. Figure out how far away from the mirror, and at what angle it should be. Once you do that, you can always refer to that information to lead you in your path through life.

"This is why we have our elders, and records of ancient times. We can learn from our predecessors. Since the birth of this world, humans have experimented with putting different things in front of the mirror. They would move, tilt, and shine lights on them. At this point, all that accumulated knowledge is just sitting there in libraries, in books, and," she tapped her temple with her index finger, "in the brains of people older than you."

She took another sip of her drink, tipping the glass so that the last drops remaining fell into her mouth. After it was emptied, she licked the moisture off her lips, and let out a satisfied sigh. She placed the glass back on the table in front of her.

"So I strongly advise you," she seemed to be moving to a conclusion, judging by the tone of her voice. "Take advantage of all the resources you can, especially if they are offering themselves to you. You're a beautiful young woman, in the flower of life, and it would be the greatest shame to see you shackled down by a repressive lifestyle. Take advantage of your youth. You only get it once."

Yukiko chose her words carefully. "I see what you mean, and of course I agree with you. But, in the end, this is my decision, right?"

"Of course."

"Okay." Yukiko nodded. "I respect you as an older person, and I appreciate you taking the time to speak to someone you only just met like this. It's rare to find someone like you, and I'm glad I did."

She paused.

"But, why did you decide to talk to me like this? You only just met me; surely you must have something better to be doing," she said.

"How could I have anything better to do than talk to my daughter?"

Yukiko was taken aback. "What did you say?"

Minako chuckled. "I wasn't expecting this, but when my daughter came to me and asked for a place to stay, how could I turn her down? You're surely aware of our family's history. As the current head of the Amagi clan, my Magic Circuits are quite powerful. There's no way I wouldn't notice who you are."

Yukiko looked away.

Minako continued. "Although, the strange thing is that you haven't been born yet..." She adopted a thoughtful pose. "There must have been some True Magic - or an imitation? - involved, for you to be here now."

"Y-you could say that, yes," Yukiko said.

"Oh?" Minako was intrigued. "Don't tell me my daughter managed to find a path to the Root? I have to say, I'm impressed-"

"No."

Minako considered this for a moment. "I see. Well, how did you end up here?"

"I-I..." Yukiko had some difficulty getting the words out. "I've been summoned as a Servant."

"In the Holy Grail War?" Minako's eyes widened.

Yukiko nodded.

"This is the..." Minako counted on her fingers. Unclenching her index finger, middle, ring, pinky... "Fourth? No, not the Fourth..." She stretched out her thumb. "The fifth Holy Grail War, eh?"

Yukiko was silent.

"I'm proud of you."

Yukiko brought her eyes to meet Minako's, but still did not speak.

Minako continued. "Finding a path to the Root would have been a great accomplishment all on its own, but it's a fundamentally selfish thing. Becoming a Heroic Spirit requires making a name for yourself in legend, and that's impossible if no one knows about what you did. So, tell me." There was an excitement in her voice, like a child listening to stories of his famous ancestors. "What did you do? Who did you save?"

"It wasn't any big deal..." Yukiko said.

Minako scoffed. "What do you mean, 'it wasn't a big deal'? The Grail certainly thinks it was a big deal, and that's good enough for me. It should be good enough for you too. C'mon, take some pride in it! You've earned it."

"You'd laugh."

"I wouldn't," Minako said.

"Promise?"

Minako closed her eyes, and put her hand on her breast. "I, Minako Amagi, do solemnly swear not to laugh at anything my daughter tells me about her achievements." She opened one eye furtively. "How's that?"

"Fine." Yukiko drew a breath. "I saved some people who were in danger of being killed by getting stuck in televisions."

"How did they end up in the televisions?" Minako said.

"Oh, you didn't..."

"Didn't what?" Minako said.

"Nothing," Yukiko said. "Anyway, they were thrown into the televisions by a rogue deity, who treated their lives like her playthings. I saved some of them. And I didn't even do it on my own; there were others. I was just support, really... the Grail must be crazy to have picked someone like me."

"The Grail is indeed strange... Nevertheless, I don't think it was wrong here. I can tell from your aura that you're far more powerful than you let on. I see I raised a humble girl."

"It's not me that you sense," Yukiko said.

"Who, then?"

"Due to the circumstances of my summoning, the bond I formed in life was preserved. Specifically, with a certain other deity, whose power I borrow," Yukiko said. "Amaterasu-no-Omikami."

"Even so, you'd need to have a pretty high level of ability to serve as a vessel for the Mother of the Chrysanthemum Throne. Humility is good, but don't sell yourself short. You're my daughter, after all."

Yukiko looked away again. "Maybe, if I was a proper vessel... Every so often, she takes control, and there's nothing I can do. She just, does whatever she wants, and by the time I wake up, she..." Yukiko started to cry.

Minako took Yukiko's hand in her own, her warm touch giving life to the girl's frail heart.

"Would you like me to teach you to control your power, Yukiko?" Minako said.

"Could you?" Tears streamed down Yukiko's face.

"Of course! We Amagi have been guarding this country for centuries; if there's one thing we know, it's the guardian deity of the land. This is assuredly why you had such inborn affinity to Amaterasu in the first place. Don't worry, there are many rituals for communing with her in our family records... as long as I can remember where I put them," she chuckled.

Yukiko laughed a little.

"There you are, Yukiko," Minako said. She used her free hand to wipe Yukiko's tears. "It'll all be all right. I'll give you a boost, and then I'll leave the rest to you. I have complete faith in you. You can win the Holy Grail War."

"You think so?" Yukiko said, her voice a little clearer now that she had stopped crying.

"I know so." Minako stood up. Her hand was still holding Yukiko's, the link of a pact between them.

Yukiko looked up at her with unfocused eyes.

Minako smiled at her. "I can't tell you how happy it makes me to meet you, Yukiko. I only envy my future self for having the opportunity to watch you grow up into the strong woman you are now." She chuckled. "Still, I look forward to getting to know my beautiful daughter."

Yukiko blushed. "I'm only here for the night, you know."

"Then let's make the most of it," Minako said. "The rituals won't perform themselves, and besides, I have a million things to ask you, if you don't mind."

"It'll be my pleasure," Yukiko said. "I'm glad to see you too... Mom."

I wanted to do some fluff for a change.

Not really any new worldbuilding introduced here; Minako was named after the fanon name for Persona 3 Portable's Female Protagonist. I quite liked her, and kinda wish Persona 4 and 5 gave you the option to play as a woman.

Hope you liked it, and see y'all next time!