It had been a perfectly ordinary day when Aoi's life shattered before her.
She had taken Rin, who was barely a month and a half old out to the park for some fresh air. She had recently discovered that she was pregnant again, which made her equal parts happy and dismayed.
It was such a nice day out and the Grail War wasn't for another seven years, so it should have been perfectly safe for an outing.
It wasn't. She had no idea when it happened, or why, but she had taken her eyes off her daughter for barely a minute when she realized with growing horror her infant daughter wasn't in the stroller anymore. Her scream alerted the other parents and the police in the park that something was horribly wrong.
She could barely register the fact that she had given a statement and only snapped out of her shock when her husband arrived to the station to demand answers about what was going on.
He was understandably furious when he found out what happened, especially when he managed to watch the videos surrounding the park and realized what happened before the Japanese ministry sanitized it of anything remotely magical.
A wizard had stolen his daughter and potential heir. He didn't know what family they belonged to, but there was no mistaking the European features the man had.
Seven months later...
Tokiomi looked at his new daughter, and was torn between pride that he had gotten his wife pregnant so quickly a second time...and fury that he had lost his first child to a wizard. It had been almost a year and there were still no leads as to where Rin had vanished.
Sakura was a beautiful little girl, but it didn't change the fact she would have to act as Rin's replacement in the event his first born remained missing. Originally he had considered sending the 'other' child to the Matou, to insure they at least had a chance to inherit a decent crest.
That idea was thoroughly destroyed now that Rin was gone. Sakura would have to be his heir, regardless of how he felt about the matter. Aoi was leery of having another child because she was terrified that it might invite bad luck and cause her to lose Sakura the same way she had Rin.
She was certainly overprotective of Sakura afterwards.
When he was chosen as a Master for the Fourth Grail war, Tokiomi almost would have wished for access to the Root, which would elevate their declining family back to where it belonged.
However after losing Rin, he had only one desire for the Grail.
He wished he had been there that day, if only to make the wizard think twice about stealing his daughter, or at least make him pay dearly for it.
Hyacinth Potter hated her life. She had several reasons why, but quite a few of them could be directly attributed to her 'family'.
She didn't care what the adults said, she refused to acknowledge that she was related to those people or that stupid pig.
Today was her seventh birthday, not that anyone cared. She didn't want to deal with her stupid cousin reminding everyone that she turned seven and that no one wanted to celebrate it with her because she was a 'freak', in the words of his parents. The only thing that would happen was that her family would make a point to remind her that if she wasn't such a 'freak' that maybe she could have had all the wonderful things Dudley got on a regular basis.
As if she cared about that crap. All she wanted was to be treated like an equal member of the family, rather than the burden they were stuck with and resented.
So what if Petunia would throw her into the cupboard again once the teachers told her that she skipped class? So what if she wasn't likely to get anything to eat today or tomorrow?
She had long since given up hope that they might treat her like family.
Either way, Hyacinth sniffled...why was she stuck with such horrible people? What had she done in her past life to deserve this treatment?
She was so caught up in her misery that she missed the rock that she tripped on, scratching her right hand. It began to bleed a little, but she had dealt with worse scrapes and didn't bother to cry.
She had to deal with a broken arm once because she fell from the tree after Ripper chased her up it, attempting to bite her again. Her aunt had yelled at her for hours because she had to drive the girl to the hospital or else the teachers would notice and demand to know why they never got it treated.
The adults had not been happy, because she couldn't do many chores and the nurse made sure she took her medication every day.
Dudley hadn't been pleased because the teachers kept him as far away from her as possible until her arm healed up, and it meant he couldn't use her as a punching bag for two blessed months.
Hyacinth wiped off as much as the blood as she could, never noticing the odd crest beginning to form on the back of her hand.
She looked at the time and debated on whether to bother returning to the house or not.
It wasn't that cold out, and all that would be waiting for her back there was condescension and sneers that no one cared about her enough to celebrate something as minor as her birthday.
Hyacinth wiped away the tears before they could form. It was something she was developing a lot of practice with...hiding behind a mask so that the world didn't know how much she was suffering inside.
Seeing the first star of the night, Hyacinth climbed a tree to hide from any well meaning adults. If anyone caught her out so late they wouldn't think twice about returning her to that hell, and her aunt would make her suffer even more once she was there.
It was a sad but true fact she spent most of her time outside the house during the nights when it was possible, so long as she could get away with it. However annoyed her 'family' was at the fact she wouldn't be around to do the chores for as long as she could keep it up was offset by the fact they could pretend she had never existed in their 'nice, normal family'. At least until she had to shower or find something to eat anyway.
She was getting a lot better at living off the land, since she had a lot of practice. Unfortunately that didn't include catching or cooking meat, as starting fires was something that would attract far too much attention and would earn her a reputation she didn't want or need.
As she observed the stars, she couldn't help but make a childish wish. Something she knew deep down would never come true...but she still prayed anyway in the hope that it would.
'I wish I had a friend or someone who cared enough to stick around. Someone those people wouldn't be able to chase away like they do everyone else...'
The minor cut on her right hand seemed to flare up with an unknown heat. A strange sigil formed on the back of her hand, glowing a bloody red.
On the ground near her, she saw a strange circle form with all sorts of odd symbols.
She could feel power coming from the circle, as a man appeared.
His hair was spiked and was pure white. His skin was a tan that could only come from long hours in the sun. His clothing was so obviously foreign that he would stand out in the drab neighborhood of Surrey within seconds of being there. He was also tall...much taller than her gym teacher who was the tallest man in the area. He wore boots that were obviously meant for hard combat, and the sort of easy confidence you'd expect from someone who had been in a lot of hard fights and knew how to handle any sort of combat situation.
In short he was the most interesting thing to show up in Little Whinging, and it really made her wonder what the heck was going on.
The man had the most beautiful amber colored eyes she had ever seen...it was almost like looking into the sunset.
"I ask of you... are you my Master?"
She blinked.
"What?" she said baffled, staring at him.
That seemed to throw him off, as he looked up and spotted her. A strange sort of recognition flickered through his eyes.
"Why are you in a tree?" he asked.
"Because I don't want the adults to see me. They'll make me go back, and I would rather sleep outside," she replied honestly.
Something in her gut said to trust him completely, and since her instincts had never steered her wrong before she decided to go with it. Besides, the man was rather fascinating.
"Aren't you a little young to be camping alone?" he asked.
Though nothing in his eyes said that he was inclined to make her return to a place she didn't feel safe if she would honestly prefer sleeping outdoors so close to fall. Besides, it wasn't that cold out.
"I'm not that young! I just turned seven!" she frowned at him.
A light dusting of humor crossed his face.
"What's your name?"
"Hyacinth. Hyacinth Potter. What's your name Mister?"
"I don't remember."
Hyacinth looked at him sharply.
"If you don't want to say what it is, then at least have the decency not to lie to me," she pouted. "I hate liars."
The man gave her a measuring gaze.
"Fair enough. You may call me Archer," he said after a moment.
Hearing the sound of someone nearby, Hyacinth stiffened. If she was found then they would take her back to that house, or worse chase Mr. Archer away. After all, he was too interesting to be local and the adults had some weird ideas about acceptable behaviors.
Archer easily climbed up the tree and helped her up to one of the higher branches. She settled into his lap, with one of his arms keeping her from falling down. Strangely, it was the most comfortable spot she had ever been in bar none. The odd man made her feel safe in a way she had never experienced in her short life.
His warmth was also making her really sleepy. He lightly chuckled and wrapped his arm around her tighter, allowing her to use his chest like a pillow. She was out like a light within moments, secure in the knowledge Archer wouldn't hurt her.
Archer POV
EMIYA could say he had seen (and experienced) a lot of bizarre things. He blamed the Kaleidoscope and his own E-ranked luck for that...well, that and his stubborn nature when it came to Saving others.
Being summoned by a child who could have passed for a seven year old Rin Tohsaka, save for a few details that were impossible to ignore and was in desperate need of Saving? That ranked up in the top twenty of his usual experiences.
It was clear she had summoned him without any idea what she was doing, if the state of her Circuits were any indication. Honestly, it wasn't that dissimilar to how he had summoned Saber a life time ago.
The girl was skinny, to the point that it was pretty clear she was being neglected and malnourished. When she finally woke up the next morning, she went to the small school nearby and tried to avoid everyone, particularly the teachers and a small pig.
What little Archer was seeing of the girl's life did not paint a happy picture. The fat pig was apparently her 'cousin' and was rather gleeful about reminding her no one wanted her around and that no one cared about her enough to celebrate her birthday yesterday.
The teachers were entirely too apathetic, though he had to wonder if that was deliberate or if they had given up trying to do anything due to outside interference. Seeing the horse woman yank Hyacinth around with a barely hidden scowl on her face only made it even more obvious the girl was being abused.
Honestly, the longer he watched her the more determined he became to remove his little Master from the area and not look back.
The bounded field around her home was an absolute joke...whoever made it was a bigger amatuer than he had been before Rin got through with him. It was as if they had thrown together a hodge-podge of runes based off random bounded fields and tied it together with a blood anchor that had specific requirements, but had never taken properly.
Even his more naive self could have done better with a half-assed idea of rune combinations, and that was saying something.
The more he observed the girl's situation, the harder it was for him to ignore the similarity to a much younger Rin. He had the sneaking suspicion something had happened...and ironically it wasn't Zelretch who was to blame for once.
That had been something that threw him off quite a bit, because he was so used to the damn vampire causing untold chaos just because he was bored.
However deliberately setting up a child to grow up in an abusive and highly toxic environment was certainly not the vampire's style, as far too much could go wrong. There wasn't anything remotely entertaining to be had from it, and it set off every instinct he had to Save the girl.
First he had to find out which alternate Earth he was dealing with, and where he could take the girl so that she wouldn't be dragged back to this hell hole.
Anyone who was stupid enough to put up a half-ass bounded field and keep the police from noticing the fact there was something so blatantly wrong going on in that house was obviously trying to keep Hyacinth from being removed.
There was no way a cop would ignore the fact that the girl was obviously malnourished while her 'cousin' was spoiled to the point he was a walking heart attack waiting to happen. Never mind the state of her clothes and her behavior.
Someone had to be keeping her here.
In Fuyuki
It would not be an understatement to say that Risei Kotomine, the "official" supervisor of the Fourth Grail War was confused.
All seven Servants had been summoned, the Masters chosen...and yet for some strange reason Archer had yet to make a single appearance.
After the initial clash between Saber and Lancer, most...if not all...the Servants had shown up and made their presence known.
Everyone except Archer that is. Strangely, he had the feeling Archer wasn't even in Japan at the moment, despite being summoned.
Tokiomi had summoned Gilgamesh like he planned, but for some baffling reason had summoned the ancient King as Caster, rather than Archer like he wanted.
He had not been particularly pleased by that, but withheld his irritation about the matter rather quickly. Gilgamesh was still the strongest Servant in the war in his mind, so the minor detail of his class being wrong was hardly worth complaining about.
That didn't change the facts that no one had seen Archer yet, despite the fact they had been summoned.
He just hoped the Servant wasn't in the hands of the fake Magus running around causing problems with his attempts to summon a Servant of his own. Risei was almost at the point he would ask Kirei's Assassin to deal with the issue, or post a bounty on the fool causing him grief.
If the man did summon anything, Risei wouldn't hesitate with offering a Command Seal to be rid of him and anything he brought forth.