"Father!"

Sajyou Ayaka awoke from her nightmare drenched in sweat. Her hand trembling, she blinked her blue eyes several times as she fumbled for her glasses.

It was always the same nightmare, of the ending of the Fourth Holy Grail War, ten years ago. She couldn't remember much of it clearly, as she had been too young to understand what was happening, but what she could remember was all too vivid… her father being cut to ribbons and thrown aside… her older sister Manaka standing over her with a seraphic smile… only for a gaping hole to suddenly open in her sister's chest. And on top of losing her family, she had lost a friend too. True he was still 'alive', but he was as good as dead to her. He was no longer the same person, and the son of her enemy now no less.

Was it any wonder that she feared the Holy Grail Wars and wanted nothing to do with them again? But everyone seemed to expect that she would participate in the Fifth Holy Grail War. After all, Manaka had been the Sajyou Master before her, and their father, Sajyou Hiroki, had moved from Tokyo to Fuyuki specifically so that his family could better take part in the ritual.

But Ayaka knew she couldn't do what her sister had done. Manaka was a genius, exceptionally skilled and powerful for her age. But Ayaka was just… average… hopelessly average. Ayaka had twenty Magic Circuits of middling quality, marking her as thoroughly average as a Magus, and she thought her looks were plain as well, with glasses and the dark hair typical of most Japanese girls. Manaka had stood out with her looks too, with blonde hair inherited from their British mother, and a doll-like cuteness to her. In all ways, Manaka had been better than her… and she had died in the Holy Grail War all the same. What chance would Ayaka stand?

The next Holy Grail War should have been another fifty years from now, but if what her guardian, Kotomine, had told her was true, it appeared to be coming early this time. That knowledge loomed over her like a death sentence, but she tried her best to ignore it, going through the motions of leading a normal life. In any case, she was too cowardly to think of running away from Fuyuki, and deep down she knew she was lying to herself whenever she tried to tell herself that it would be alright. She was too much of a pessimist to really believe otherwise.

So Ayaka mechanically went through her morning routine. She got dressed, pausing for a moment when she noticed a small bruise on her chest, but she decided it was nothing. She then cooked herself a simple breakfast - eggs, assorted vegetables, and coffee, and stared glumly at the chairs that her father and sister had once occupied while she joylessly ate it. Then she headed to her workshop in the Garden, a botanical greenhouse adjoining the house that her mother had left for her before succumbing to illness. Besides a variety of magically-useful herbs, a number of crows and pigeons nested there. The crows were to be Ayaka's familiars, while the pigeons were meant to be sacrificed for their blood. Her father had been quite explicit in that she must regularly make such sacrifices, for her Magecraft, like any other, was based on the principal of equivalent exchange, and blood useful as a source of concentrated magical energy. She could never stomach killing the pigeons though, not after all of the carnage she had seen at the end of the last Grail War, so she would just slit one of her own fingers instead and then bandage it up, though she could only get a trickle of blood in this way.

Following her latest failure to follow her father's orders, she began her daily walk to Homurahara Academy. She felt ill at ease around others, both from her own lack of self-confidence, and the necessity of hiding her true nature as a Magus. It was an issue that Tohsaka Rin, the current Second Owner of Fuyuki, and a fellow orphan of the War under Kotomine's guardianship, did not seem to have. In a sense, Rin could have been her surrogate sister since Manaka's death, except Kotomine would never formally adopt either of them, ostensibly for reasons of mage politics, and nor did they want him to. Rin and Ayaka couldn't truly be close to each other either, in spite of their similar backgrounds. After all, Rin fully intended to fight in the coming Grail War, and involving herself with Rin would be tantamount to Ayaka involving herself in the Grail Wars as well, which she refused to do.

While Rin was not as incredibly gifted as her sister had been, she was still an exceptionally powerful Magus for her age. Ayaka also thought Rin was far more beautiful than herself, and on top of that, Rin had the charm and academic ability to assume the guise of the school's idol and wrap almost everyone else around her finger. Thus, Ayaka lived in Rin's shadow, just as she had in Manaka's.

Then there was Reiroukan Misaya. She had transferred to Homuhara Academy a few months ago from Tokyo, but both Rin and Ayaka knew why she had come: to be a Master in the Holy Grail War as well. After all, the Reiroukan had been the highest-ranking Magus family in Tokyo back when the Sajyou had lived there as well. Misaya's gaze always turned predatory when she looked at them, or the Matou siblings for that matter, for she clearly considered all of them to be potential enemies. But just as Rin was two-faced, revealing her true, grumpy nature when she wasn't at school, Misaya adopted the impeccable manners of a noblewoman when others were around. Paired with her almost cruel beauty, she was now a rival to Rin's position as school idol, which had to irk Rin to no end.

Misaya wasn't the only transfer student as of late. There was a young man with European features, with red hair and green eyes, who had only arrived within the last two weeks. The proximity of his transfer to the Holy Grail War made Ayaka anxious at first, and she thought he might be another Master, like Misaya, but he had shown no hints of magical ability, and more importantly, lacked the animosity towards his would-be competitors that a Master would have. Indeed, the transfer student, who had introduced himself as Isemi, had quickly established himself as being one of the gentlest boys at Homurahara Academy, and paired with his handsome appearance, this soon had plenty of girls fawning over him. It was clear to Ayaka that Matou Shinji, the vice captain of the archery club, who somehow remained popular in spite of his womanizing and generally slimy behavior, already resented Isemi for 'stealing' the spotlight from him. Yet Shinji had yet to take out his anger on Isemi, and hadn't seemed as arrogant as he usually did lately. Why? In any case, Ayaka appreciated Isemi's presence at the school as much as anyone who thought it was good to see Shinji taken down a peg or two, but she couldn't let herself get too close to him, or anyone else at that matter.

But someone always insisted on getting close to her….

"Sajyou-san? Did you cut yourself again?" Emiya Shirou's all too-familiar voice asked with concern.

Ayaka grimaced. Shirou was the adopted son of Emiya Kiritsugu, the Magus Killer. Kiritsugu had been there on the night of her father and sister's death, she was sure of that. And while she couldn't remember much of it, she knew that her father had confined her to the house for the last few days of the Fourth Holy Grail War after Kiritsugu had kidnapped her and unsucessfully tried to use her as leverage against Manaka. Kiritsugu had passed away of an illness five years ago, but Ayaka had no doubt that Kiritsugu had trained Shirou as the second Magus Killer.

What made it worse was that Shirou had once been her friend. She couldn't remember his family name from before the fire, or perhaps he hadn't ever told her. But one day, while she was sitting in the park by herself, feeling lonely, he had approached her and asked if she wanted to play. He was a lot more cheerful back then, and she couldn't help but feel better at seeing his silly grin. It was a precious memory, brief as it was. She had spent so much time with him that day that she had stayed out past her curfew, which led to her abduction by Kiritsugu.

The next time she had seen him was inside the Fuyuki Civic Center, where the carnage at the end of the Fourth Holy Grail War had unfolded. Why he was there with her and so many others, she couldn't say, but he was barely coherent, his mind creaking under the weight of the horrors before them. After waking up in a hospital room, her hopes had soared when Kotomine told her there was another survivor, but they were dashed soon thereafter. Shirou had no memory of her from before the fire, and the man sitting by his side was none other than the Magus Killer.

"I was just clumsy," she lied, not making eye contact with Shirou. He was actually become somewhat handsome, in a more rugged way than Isemi, but save for his reddish-brown hair, Shirou didn't really stand out otherwise. He was always going out of his way to help people around the school, for which he had earned the reputation of Homurahara's 'Fake Janitor', but he always seemed to take a particular interest in her, and that made her uncomfortable.

"Are you sure?" he pressed.

"I'm fine." Why couldn't Shirou go bother Sakura instead? The girl was clearly in love with him.

"Okay, Sajyou-san. But let me know if you need any help. It's been nearly ten years since that…." his words trailed off, and he froze up for a moment, trembling. Why would he dredge up memories that were just as painful to him as they were to her?

"Why did you have to bring that up now, you idiot?" she snapped, pulling off her glasses for a moment. This was a quirk of Ayaka's. She had started wearing her glasses to correct for the myopia she had developed after spending too much time immersed in books while her father and sister worked together, but in her mind, they also helped put some distance between herself and the world. In turn, this maintained her meek and withdrawn personality at school. But as soon as she removed them, her personality would change drastically, becoming irritable and aggressive. Ayaka didn't like showing this side of her personality, but in this case she couldn't properly express herself in her bespectacled persona. "Snap out of it!"

Shirou blinked, coming back to reality, and Ayaka put back on her glasses. But her outburst had caused a scene.

"Whoa, are those two going out together?" a student whispered.

"I thought she hated him," replied another.

"It's a tsundere thing she has going there. I bet she actually likes him."

"Emiya-kun's totally crushing on her, though. Don't you think he goes a bit more out of his way than usual for Sajyou-san, even though she never wants his help?"

"We aren't going out together," Shirou and Ayaka replied, nearly in unison. Immediately, what was left of Ayaka's anger turned to embarrassment. That was just the worst thing she could have said in that situation.

"I… I have to go," she murmured, eyes downcast as she pushed past the crowd.

The school day passed, but Ayaka could barely focus on her classes, for there was something she had to do after school. She didn't feel like she missed much though, since it wasn't as if she was particularly skilled in any of her school subjects except English anyways. As soon as the bell rang, she excused herself, and headed for the school gate. It was raining, so she took out her umbrella.

"Huh? Sajyou-san? Are you going somewhere?" Isemi called out.

"To the graveyard on the outskirts of Shinto," she said as she kept walking. She made a habit of visiting her father's grave on the anniversary of his death. They had never found Manaka's body though. Kotomine had suggested that it must have been burned beyond recognition.

"I see. Well, be careful, Sajyou-san," Isemi replied. "There's been a lot of strange stuff in the news lately…"

Like she needed him to tell her that, well meaning as he was. Already, the authorities were reporting suspicious "gas leaks", and from Kotomine's insistent phone calls, she knew that the Fifth Holy Grail War was about to begin. But she wasn't a Master. These incidents had nothing to do with her.

The graveyard brought her uncomfortably close to Kotomine's church. Like the Tohsaka who had invited them to Fuyuki, Sajyou Hiroki had enjoyed close ties with the Church, but Ayaka did not consider herself devout by any means. Growing up under Kotomine was enough to make anyone jaded with the idea of organized religion. Still, visiting the graveyard was the least she could do to honor her father's memory. She laid a wreath on the grave, and was about to go, when she heard someone step up behind her. Turning around, she thought for a moment that it was Kotomine come to pester her about the Grail War again, but the priest was a younger, European-looking man with pale hair. His blue eyes looked kind, and he was carrying roses in his arms, but Ayaka couldn't help but feel uneasy in his presence.

"Hello, Sajyou-san," he said, fluently speaking in Japanese.

"Who are you?" She asked. "What do you want?"

"My apologies, Sajyou-san. My name is Sancraid Phahn. I belong to the Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament in the Holy Church. What happened to your family…. I'm really sorry about that."

Ayaka gritted her teeth and turned away from him.

"They were so close to the truth too, and had won nearly every battle…."

"Please, go away…"

"I hope we can get along quite well, Sajyou-san. But why aren't you making preparations yet?" he asked with concern. "Everyone else has either already summoned or is preparing to summon their Servants.

"I already have Kotomine telling me that…"

"So why don't you follow his advice? He is your priest and guardian, is he not? Kotomine understands what you do not… Why, he was one of the Masters in the last war."

She turned to face Sancraid again. "I want nothing to do with the Holy Grail War."

Sancraid frowned. "That is unfortunate. All things are related by cause and effect, and as long as you are alive, the Holy Grail War will always have something to do with you." He leaned in close, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "If you want to be free of that connection, the only choice left to you is to die. So please, make your preparations tonight. After dark, everyone will seek you out. After all, the strongest opponent should be eliminated as soon as possible, right?"

Ayaka felt as if body had turned to ice, and went pale. Of course, she had known that the countdown to her death would reach zero once the Holy Grail War began, but to have another throwing that truth right in her face produced the need for an immediate fight or flight response. She chose to run, hoping to take sanctuary at Kotomine's Church. But she had scarcely left the graveyard and Sancraid when she encountered a small girl with long silvery hair, red eyes, and a purple coat, standing between her and the path to the church.

"Don't think of running that way, Sajyou…" the girl said sweetly. "I have nothing against you, but Grandfather Acht really was quite insistent that I kill you. You see, the Sajyou stole the catalyst that was supposed to be ours last time. But you haven't summoned a Servant yet, have you?" She pouted. "Killing you when you're completely defenseless would be no fun! So I'll give you until midnight…"

Ayaka didn't need to be told twice. She turned, and started running back to her home in Miyama Town, on the other side of the city. It was almost dark when she got there. Still in a panic, Ayaka began frantically looking for anything that could protect her. Of course, the whole house was warded by a Bounded Field that her father had established, but if an intruder got past it, she would have to fight herself. There was a simple shroud of invisibility that could partially conceal her presence, but that would only buy her time. And then there was a ring of Witchcraft, left by her mother. It was silver in color, with engravings of feathers on its side, and adorned with a black jewel, a Mystic Code containing one of the few spells Ayaka felt she had any proficiency with. When she passed prana into it from her Magic Circuits, she could conjure plumes of black feathers that would fly at her enemies. Like Rin's Gandr Shot, the feathers were charged with black magic, allowing them to deliver a curse, but they had a greater, though momentary, physicality to them as well, allowing them to do additional damage upon contact. In that sense, the spell was essentially making use of Projection as well.

Breathing heavily, Ayaka slipped her mother's ring onto her finger, turned off all the lights, and then tossed herself on the couch, facing away from windows and pulling the shroud of invisibility over her.

Ayaka's only indication of how long she spent cowering there was the occasional chiming of the grandfather clock. Her heart was still hammering in her chest. "I can't do it… I can't do it" echoed endlessly in her mind. "There's no way I can do what my sister did! Just leave me alone!"

Then she heard the dogs barking outside. They seemed to be getting closer. Ayaka pulled the shroud over her tighter, begging for them to go away. But then she heard yelps of pain, as the dogs were intercepted and dispatched by the Bounded Field. And there was a strong magical aura nearby… that meant….

Ayaka threw off the shroud as a pair of dogs leaped through the windows, snarling at her as they landed on the ground. Brandishing the feathered ring, she unleashed a flurry of plumes that flew toward their targets. The dogs howled as the feathers struck their mark, and then Ayaka turned and ran into the hallway.

More dogs pursued, but in the confines of the corridor, it was impossible for them to dodge as Ayaka conjured more cursed feathers, and they were killed outright. A burning pain radiated through her body, as using one's Magic Circuits was inherently unnatural, but she didn't show it, for Magi were trained to tolerate such routine discomfort. Still, she felt her confidence swell. Was the enemy Servant only going to send these dog familiars after her? Ha! He'd have to do better than that.

Of course, being a braggart at times was another of Ayaka's flaws, and no sooner had she thought that, the hounds ceased their attack, and the Servant appeared. He was blue-haired man, wearing armor over a matching tunic, trimmed with fur, and was carrying a wooden spear in his hands. From what she knew of the Holy Grail Wars, this had to be Lancer.

"Oi, so you're the little lady of this house," he said, sounding bored. "Look, it's nothing personal, but my Master wants me to bring her your head tonight, so let's finish this up quick.

Ayaka knew there was nothing she could do to defeat a Servant. He would kill her, and that would be the end of it. But reflexively, she shouted "Stay away!" and sent another barrage of feathers his way.

Lancer lazily swept the feathers aside with his spear, and in another moment he was almost upon her. Ayaka stumbled backwards, narrowly avoiding being decapitated by his swing, which carved a long furrow into the wall. Scrambling to her feet, she fired more cursed feathers at Lancer, and at that distance he actually had to try to block them, buying her a precious second to put distance between herself and him. But constantly using the ring was rapidly depleting her magical energy. She wouldn't be able to hold off an opponent as powerful as Lancer for much longer.

"Hm… good instincts," Lancer whistled, sounding faintly impressed. "That's some old-fashioned black magic you've got there, little lady. It's such a waste… but it would have been boring if the hunt ended so soon, wouldn't it?"

She wasn't listening to him. She recalled her father telling her that if she ever found herself in a dire situation, she should head to Garden, and that was exactly what she was doing. Throwing herself inside, she sealed the door, making nearby branches grow rampant over it, and then she activated the Garden's Bounded Field, which was the strongest in the house. Surely, it would hold Lancer for a -

Ayaka was thrown backward as Lancer knocked down the door with a single thrust of his spear, causing a veritable gale of wind to rush into her Garden. The hounds followed close behind, leaping into the air. She managed to kill one of them, but the other landed and bit her thigh. It then knocked her to the ground, raking its claws across her arms. The familiar was much stronger than she was, so there was no hope of her shaking it off. She had nearly reached her limit, so she knew she would have only one chance against it.

The hound reared up, preparing to tear out her throat, and in doing so exposed its chest to her. A deadly burst of black magic tore through it, killing it instantly. Then her hand fell back down to the ground. That was it. She was exhausted, and even if she had the magical energy for another shot, it wouldn't do any good against Lancer. She forced herself not to cry.

"I'll be seeing you soon, father… sister… mother…"

"That's it? Are you out of ammunition? Or did you just give up? Just when it was getting good too… Well, it can't be helped. You made this hunt more interesting than I ever thought it was going to be though, so I promise I'll make it quick. I'm on a schedule anyways. My Master gave me ten minutes to finish this job, and that's almost up."

Lancer raised his spear over her heart, and sheer terror gripped her.

"No! I refuse to die! I refuse to die!" she thought spear began its fatal descent. "Father! Save me!" she cried.

The tip of the spear pierced her blouse and drew a trickle of blood from her chest, but before it could go any deeper there was a sudden flash of light and a gust of wind that threw Lancer back. The wind continued to swirl around her, and sigils, long hidden on the ground, lit up with magical energy.

"What?" Lancer shouted over the din. "She actually managed to summon a Servant? No more time for playing around then!" He lunged forward again, but before he could strike, another being materialized between them, and immediately turned to deflect Lancer's attack with a massive black and silver shield.

"Huh? A shield? What gives? What kind of Servant are you?"

"I am the Servant Shielder!" a female voice cried out. "You will not harm my Master!"

Author's Note:

This is a remake of my older Fate/Proto Crossing. That version of the story is officially dead after a long hiatus (as some of you may have surmised). However, I hope that this version will be more successful, as the basic idea of the story has appealed to me for several years.

While the conflict to come most closely resembles the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, certain liberties will be taken in this story. In a nod to early drafts of Fate/Stay Night, Ayaka's Servant will be Shielder, whose design was later repurposed into Mash Kyrielight in Fate/Grand Order. Shielder has the same basic design in this story, but is a different character than Mash. While Fate/Prototype purists might prefer to see Ayaka with Proto Saber as her Servant, it is necessary for him to be another Master's Servant in this story, so that said Master's backstory and powers might remain relatively intact. But rest assured, Proto Saber will be appearing soon, and Ayaka will have plenty of time to interact with him throughout the Grail War.

As for the cover illustration, some may notice that Ayaka is not wearing her typical uniform. This is entirely intentional. After all, if she attends Homuhara Academy in this story, she would wear the same uniform that Rin, Sakura, and the other girls have in Fate/Stay Night.

As an aside, if you want an OP theme to this story, as if you were watching the episodes of an anime while you read it, then I recommend "Brave Shine", particularly Sapphire's English lyrics for it. While it is originally the opening to the second half of the 2014 Unlimited Blade Works Adaptation, and the song was about Shirou, I believe parts of it rather aptly captures what our protagonist Ayaka is feeling as well. Then again, they have similar backstories, which was in part the inspiration of this story, so that makes sense.

Special thanks to my reader, who provided me the encouragement necessary to revive this project, and has provided useful feedback and suggestions.