Note:The world being wrong isn't just a cheeky reference to this being a different timeline than canon or a flippant justification for getting rules wrong. I'm no Nasuverse expert, so I'm gonna also just get things wrong sometimes, but that feeling Archer has is very relevant to the plot of this fic and why certain things happen the way they do.

Anyway! Enjoy!

Everything was heat and blinding light and thirst. I couldn't see anything else, but the swordsman saw none of it. His dreams were like walking through a haunted house without power or light. Shades of things that held significance once, but were now mere shapes casting shadows in the dark.

The swirling sand covered everything but the man's ideals.

What he saw was the promise of what could be, of the gifts God himself had bestowed upon his people. He was thankful for the sun, though it burned, for all it did to nurture life and growth. He was thankful for the thirst, because it reminded him to savor every drop of water. He wanted for many things, and he was thankful, because life was not about what you had, it was about how you lived.

The swirling sand covered everything but the man's ideals and his darkness.

He raged and screamed and clawed like a wild animal, but it was only himself he truly hated, and only in his most solitary moments. A seed crystal of… something. Something he didn't let himself think about unless he was truly alone. The valor and hypocrisy of his existence.

No matter what else changed, I couldn't see his face. Gusting sand and sweltering darkness veiled it from sight, but I don't think this was deliberate obfuscation. I don't think he remembered his own face. He felt nothing at this lack, but I felt regret. It didn't seem right, but I didn't know why I felt that way. He was an assassin, right? He killed people for a living. He killed so many people so well that he was remembered to this day as a Heroic Spirit. He deserved to forget. He deserved to lose himself.

I wanted to believe that.

But I didn't.

The man knelt upon a simple, clean rug, and the memory of this rug was as sharp and clear as the rest of it was obscured. His arms were folded under him, his face against the floor. He was muttering to himself, I thought at first, but I realized soon that it was more than that. Something heard him.

There were rich men, and there were poor men, and there was the man. He had a name, once, but not even he can recall it. Names were not what made things powerful. He knew this.

To know yourself so well and to have forgotten such important things…

The desert could be cruel, but it could be beautiful, too.

The dunes were great works of art, sculpted by a loving, forgiving God. How could he not see the beauty?

A flash in the storm. A blade in the dark. Blood soaked quickly into the sand. Hidden. No joy, but contentment. The relief of a job, finished. I felt the same way when I fixed a piece of machinery that everyone else had given up for dead. I couldn't see my body, but I could feel the chill that ran through it.

We weren't the same.

A hope for… something. I couldn't see what.

Many men died. Many men lived. He did not choose their fate. He was a tool of something greater. He never killed an innocent, but the blood on his hands should have been enough to drown him. This was the larval stage of the Heroic Spirit known as Assassin: the elements of the force of nature he would become were there, but they were unformed, incomplete. The metamorphosis had not begun.

The shadows cloaked him, and the shadows blanketed him, and the shadows protected him. He became one with the shadows, and the shadows welcomed him as an old friend.

Until the darkness betrayed him.

By the time Rin had made it back to her own home, she was so delirious with exhaustion that she had half convinced herself that if she stopped moving, she'd probably die. The front door was a problem, and she had to set the idiot sack of bricks down on the ground to fumble it open. A vindictive urge to just leave him on the doorstep washed over her, and it was all she could do to keep herself from following through.

But no, she couldn't do that. Not now. Not after the night they'd had. Later, well…

Later was later.

The door squeaked open, and she got her arms under his to drag him inside. She thought he'd stopped bleeding at some point, so she let herself hope that maybe he wouldn't bleed all over her expensive shit after all. Moments later, the tacky trail of half-dried blood that he left behind like a slug dashed that particular hope.

"Archer?" She called weakly. "Archer, are you here?" There was no response, so she checked her Command Seal. It was still there, so the dickhead hadn't kicked the bucket just yet. "Assholes," she grumbled, yanking Shirou up a set of stairs, too tired and grumpy to bother being gentle. "I'm surrounded by useless assholes." Her burning arms gave out, and she made an undignified sound as his head thunked into one of the steps.

"My Contractor is human," Assassin's unearthly voice chided her. "Please do not concuss him."

"If whatever you're doing to him hasn't ruined his brain, a little head injury won't make much difference one way or the other," she growled, hoisting him up over the last step. She lowered him to the ground more deliberately, and doubled over panting.

"He does seem to possess a remarkably thick skull, for a mortal," he mused helpfully.

Despite herself, Rin coughed out a laugh. "I'll say." Was he actually making a joke? It was possible. She might have imagined that pleased quality in the energy of the room. Laughing with an enemy was a strange feeling.

The moment passed, through, and she continued the agonizing journey, not realizing she was going to her bedroom until she was already there. "You'll pay for those sheets," she muttered.

"Why art thou doing this?" The humor was gone from his voice, but it wasn't quite an accusation. Just a switch to a more serious topic.

"Putting this dumbass in my bed? If you figure it out, let me know." She paused at the bedside, weighing her options. She genuinely wasn't sure if she could lift him, as tired as she was.

"Where his head lies matters little. Why art thou putting my Contractor under thine protection? I have taken stock of thee, and thou art a mage of no small skill. Dost thou owe him a debt?"

She looked down at his unconscious body, bruised and battered and so covered in dried blood that she almost couldn't see the grey pall on his skin. His right eye was swollen shut, and his slow breath had a ragged edge to it. He looked worse than he had when he'd been bleeding out in the school, she thought with an odd pang. At least that would have been a quick death. Other responses assailed her, memories and feelings and intuitions, but mostly, she saw the distant smile of a sad, empty girl. "Not to him."

She had the sense of being regarded. Studied. He didn't respond.

She halfway considered asking him to manifest for a few seconds, just to hoist Shirou up onto the bed. Would he even feel it if he was already unconscious? "It's none of your business, anyway." She pushed the thought away, then grabbed him and lifted with her knees. After a bit of a struggle, she managed to get his upper body up on top of the mattress. She… needed another second to breathe.

"Once my Contractor hath awakened, wilt thou propose an alliance?"

She grimaced as she flopped his limp legs up onto the bed and tucked a pillow under his head. "I haven't thought that far ahead. You guys are still my enemy."

"Thou hast been presented with many an opportunity to end his life, and yet still he draws breath. How far will thy debt take thee?"

She pried his shoes off of his feet and tossed them off into a corner. It was an absolutely meaningless gesture, considering how nasty the guy was at the moment, but something about leaving his shoes on while he was in bed felt wrong. "I don't know. Maybe. I don't know where Archer is, and you can't manifest without hurting him. Neither of us have great odds."

"It would, perhaps, be beneficial, then. Thou art a being of honor, and I will never be the first to break a bond. If an alliance were proposed, it would be honored."

Rin squinted suspiciously at the patch of empty air that the voice seemed to originate from. "You seem awfully keen on cooperation for an Assassin."

"I do not hide my intentions. No one tastes death from my blade that has not gazed upon my face and known their time. Other assassins skulk in the shadows, figurative and literal. I do no such thing."

"You're a weird one, you know that? I didn't prepare for this possibility." Should she put him under the blankets? She went back and forth a few times on that, before begrudgingly wedging him under her top sheet. She'd make him replace them all anyway.

"Preparation can only take one so far. The realities of any situation must dictate the action taken. I must remind thee: my intentions are not altruistic. The rules of my summoning dictate that I must do everything in my power to make my Contractor victorious. An alliance with thee is the best path to that end I can see."

She wasn't used to that kind of honesty. Her first instinct was to recoil, to look for the angle, but she had to remind herself that he'd just told her his angle. That wasn't how most magi did things. "You… make a good point." She stood up straight, held her head up high. "And the same goes for you, Assassin. We aren't friends. We'll probably end up killing each other in the end. But for now…" She held out a hand to shake, ready to seal the deal, before remembering that Assassin wouldn't be able to reciprocate. She lowered it sheepishly. "For now, we're allies."

"Allies." There was a strange sense of finality to the word.

"As long as Emiya agrees, anyway." She glanced over at the unconscious lump. Even all beat to shit like he was, he had started to look a little less like he'd been pounded unconscious and a little more like he was asleep.

"My Contractor has a good heart. He will not object to cooperation."

"It's more the part after that I'm worried about."

"A good heart must sometimes be hardened. Bitter experience will be an excellent teacher."

"Uh… huh." Cryptic goddamn weirdo. A yawn cracked her jaw, and that terrible exhaustion filled her again. "Anyway, I'm gonna go pass the fuck out. Make sure stupid doesn't choke on his own tongue while he's asleep, or something."

Assassin didn't seem to consider this to be worthy of a response, so she shuffled stiffly out of the silent bedroom. At the door, she hesitated.

Wait, where am I going to sleep?

She threw open the door with a groan, took one look around, and thought Can't the universe give me ONE SECOND to rest?

The room outside her bedroom was a mess. A trail of half-dried blood and dirt ran along the path she'd dragged Emiya through, and some of the furniture had gotten knocked around a little in the process. She expected that. What she didn't expect was the mangled corpse that was draped over her goddamn sofa. Her first reaction was dull rage more than it was fear.

When the red haze of anger had lifted a little, the image resolved into something a little more sensible. The corpse was Archer, and though he was mangled and bleeding, he wasn't actually a corpse. Not yet, anyway. She could see more blood and burns than unmarred skin, and his left arm, hanging off to one side, was twisted in a fashion that suggested the bone had been shattered. The smell of violence in the air. His left eye swollen shut in almost an exact mirror of Shirou's bruise. What was worst was the enormous gash straight across his belly, what she took to be his good hand actually holding it closed so as to keep his insides… well, inside. Her servant was slumped back in what might have looked like a lounge if it weren't for the evisceration, head lolling back, a trickle of drool running out of the corner of his mouth.

Something burbled and twisted under her ribs. Sheer relief that he was alive. Warm gratitude for his noble sacrifice. Cold fear that his flow of magical energy might be so disrupted that he might disappear at any moment. Sorrow at the agony he must have endured. She felt all these things, swirling together in a confusing, gnarled churn of emotion. A million ways to express it all ran through her mind at once.

What she actually said was: "What the hell happened to kicking Berserker's ass?"

Consciousness came slowly.

At first, all he was aware of was a dull pain that seemed to encompass everything. Blanketing. Formless. After all that had happened last night, this level of ache was almost comforting. But he was a person, he remembered, and a person had a shape. Over minutes or days, the undefined haze began to resolve into something that resembled his body; this pain was in his head, those his arms, these his legs. In that half-sleep, he could almost convinced himself that his muscles burned after a hard workout the day before, and nothing more. Dehydration and exertion. It could also explain the weariness that had settled deep into his bones, but no exercise had ever made him feel this drained.

Seconds or hours later, he noticed the silence. The steady, calming ticking of the clock in his bedroom was missing. From there he realized that he wasn't home, which made him note that the blankets wrapped around him were unfamiliar. They were soft, and they were smooth, and they smelled nice. An oddly familiar perfumed scent that tickled his nose, but not unpleasantly. His own sheets were scratchy and rough, and they didn't smell like anything. He missed them terribly.

Shirou let himself drift.

When finally he opened his eyes, it felt as though he'd been deposited in some other reality while he'd been asleep. He recognized that he was in a bedroom, but not much else. The floor was luxurious red carpeting, streaked with a strange, rusty brown; the walls paneled in dark wood. Golden, embroidered curtains hung over windows that streamed sunlight, matching the opulent ceiling. A canopy that was also the bed spread high above him, the sheets wrapped around him white and gold and red and soaked in sweat. His sneakers lay forlornly in a far corner, and he found himself staring at them, trying to wrap his mind around his surroundings. The splash of familiarity was enough to make the rest seem all the more unreal. More money had been spent on this room than he or Kiritsugu had probably ever seen in their whole lives combined. The air was strangely still.

"The other Master's bedroom," rumbled Assassin's voice from nowhere, and Shirou felt a strange pride that it didn't startle him this time. "Rin Tohsaka. She carried you several miles back to her home after the battle."

Shirou blinked. "Miles…?" He hadn't known where they'd been running. They'd just run. He had a vague idea of where Tohsaka lived, though, and it couldn't have been close. "I'll have to thank her, then." He was trying to talk at a normal volume, but all that was actually coming out was a hoarse whisper. A dull ache throbbed behind one eye, and he closed them again. It helped a little.

"Whilst thou slept, a pact was made. We shall ally with her and her Servant until such time as cooperation will no longer be beneficial." A pause. "If I have overstepped my bounds, know that I did so only in order to better fulfill the duty for which I was summoned."

Warmth settled into his belly. Something like… a muscle relaxing that he hadn't realized he'd been clenching. Shirou shook his head, then kind of regretted it. "Nah, you did good. I'd have tried to get her to agree to the same thing."

An agreeable silence. Assassin didn't seem like the kind of person to carry much of a conversation if he didn't feel like he had anything to say.

"We haven't really had a chance to… talk," Shirou said after a few moments. "Have we?"

"Thy first night as my Contractor was hectic," Assassin agreed.

Shirou struggled to a sitting position. It was really difficult, with his limbs feeling like the bones had been replaced with jelly. That, and the pounding headache. He opened his eyes, winced, and settled for a squint. "Well, I'm Shirou Emiya. It's nice to meet you." He held out his hand.

The silence stretched long enough that Shirou was almost convinced that Assassin wouldn't speak again. He put his hand in his lap, self conscious. "I am Servant Assassin. If the title Old Man of the Mountain means something to thee, know that I am he. If it does not, then further specification will not assist thee." Another silence. "It is… nice to meet thee."

Shirou laughed. "Okay, then." He looked down at his hand, and his smile faded. The red insignia inscribed onto it, two parts bright and one part dim. It meant so much, but not to him. To him, it meant… pain. But no, he couldn't think that way. "I've never heard that before. Or… I don't think I have. Old Man of the Mountain?"

Assassin sounded amused. "Then perhaps my legend has not been passed down to this epoch, and yet my abilities appear to remain undiminished by it. Curious."

"You didn't seem diminished to me," Shirou ventured. Images of the raw power that had suffused Assassin the night before flashed through his mind. Images that were all he had. He hadn't gotten a great look at the Servant in action, for obvious reasons.

Assassin made a noise that could have been a chuckle. "I am diminished, my Contractor. Just not by that."

You are simply insufficient as a Master, the bastard priest said in his mind with a smug smile. Shirou's smile faded. "Because I'm so weak."

"As I said to thee: my power does not lie within the realm of the arcane. The knowledge I possess on the subject is cursory at best," Assassin explained. "And recall that there is more than one kind of power. Lack of ability in magic does not preclude power, or even heroism, nor is it an indicator of strength of character. However… In this case, yes, I believe that thy magic circuits are at fault. They cannot provide the energy that I require."

Shirou sighed. "Well, I don't want you to have to be stuck invisible all the time. Can't we do something about that?"

"My current state is more complex than mere invisibility, but it does present a problem. The War will be difficult to win if thy Servant cannot manifest."

"Well, then Rin can win, right?" Shirou shrugged. "I don't really care about getting the Grail. I just don't want someone bad to do something horrible with it."

Assassin did not respond.

"Anyway, we'll figure it out," he continued. "Like Kotomine said, Rin's smart. She might be able to figure something out."

"Hm."

Shirou flexed his fingers experimentally. They were stiff. "Old Man of the Mountain…" he mused quietly. Images of parched desert and pouring blood flashed before his eyes. "You were an assassin in life too, weren't you?"

"I have been many things," Assassin said, but he didn't sound like he was intentionally dodging the question. "Life is a difficult thing to define, in my case. But yes, I was an assassin. Perhaps not in the same way that thy imagination might suggest. I did not kill for anything so base as money, nor did I gather disciples for my own power, nor did I put my blade in my targets' backs."

Shirou blinked. Many questions sprang to mind, and it was an effort to only ask one. "You had disciples?"

"I was the first grandmaster of a sect known as the Hashashin." Assassin sounded nostalgic. "Their existence is no longer any great secret, though one of my foundational precepts was discretion. They were destroyed nearly a thousand years ago."

"I'm sorry," Shirou said. It seemed like the right thing to say.

"I am not. They performed their duty admirably, and when the evening bell tolled their time, they faced their end with dignity." He spoke as though talking about an old friend who passed away long enough ago that the wound no longer hurt. "I slew the last man myself. What I began, I also needed to end. It was my duty to complete the circle."

That's a little disturbing, isn't it? Shirou had no idea how to respond. Sorry you had to kill people who looked up to you? Hope you're doing okay, bud? Nothing really seemed to fit. "Hey, uh. We're safe now, though, right?"

"I do not sense the presences of any Servants other than myself and Archer."

Shirou stiffened, though he wasn't immediately sure why. "Archer survived?"

"His wounds were severe, so Rin is dedicating the better part of her magical energy to allowing him to heal. She estimates that most of his functionality will return over the next few days."

"That's good," Shirou said. His initial feeling of relief was that they wouldn't be defenseless, but that was quickly replaced by an intense self loathing for such a selfish thought. He should be happy Archer was still breathing for his own sake, even if he didn't like the guy. "Good to hear."

He searched the room for a clock, and his eyes landed on a digital alarm clock by the bed. It was almost one in the afternoon. Had he ever slept so late in his life? He didn't think so. And still, he didn't want to get up.

He pushed the sheets off of himself, and after a short struggle to untangle his legs, he swung them over the side of the bed. "Okay. Here goes." He slid gently off the bed and planted his feet. His legs wobbled so badly he thought he might fall, but he was able to steady himself. He steeled himself, then hobbled toward the door. "I'm going to go find Tohsaka."

"She should be somewhere in the house. Would thou like me to assist in thine search?"

"Please," Shirou gasped. He wasn't even halfway to the door, and he was already winded.

"Then I shall return."

Shirou hobbled the rest of the way to the door alone, then leaned on the frame to try to catch his breath.

Mist hung over the neighborhood, and Sakura hummed softly to herself as she walked down those familiar sidewalks that she could have navigated in her sleep. A tote bag was slung over one shoulder, a light basket of groceries carried in the other hand. She swung it a little as she walked, keeping rough time with it.

It wasn't a school day, and normally she let him be on Sundays, but yesterday, she'd noticed Senpai had been running low on some necessities. Rice and milk and butter. Not much, but he hadn't seen it. She hadn't said anything, because she liked to surprise him with things like this. To be thoughtful, and see that smile spread across his face. That one that said she'd done something good. That she'd done something worthwhile. A smile to match the one in her mind spread across her face.

She liked that feeling, and she wondered if doing kind things for her own gratification made her selfish, and the smile faded.

She wondered that a lot, but she wondered it a little less when she was with him.

She stumbled, her foot catching on a bit of broken sidewalk, breaking off her humming with a quiet squeak. She caught herself before she hit the ground, but it was a near thing with the basket unbalancing her. The walkway outside Senpai's house seemed to have descended into disrepair remarkably quickly, she thought. Had it been damaged like this yesterday? It couldn't have been. She'd have noticed.

Still, she didn't allow herself to worry until she pushed open his gate and stepped up to his house.

The open doorway yawned wide like a hungry animal, the familiar hallway stretching away from her more something alive and malevolent than like a room. A moment of panic. A moment of rising tension like a discordant symphony of violins wailing in her ear. Before she could be overwhelmed and carried off-

A sense of eerie calm descended upon Sakura Matou, and she entered the house with cold, detached eyes that belied the screaming and gibbering that threatened to burst forth. There were signs of a struggle. Cracks in the wall there, where something heavy had landed hard.

(Senpai's head slammed into the drywall hard enough to crack the skull by inhuman hands and she will not think of that.)

Here, a small splatter of blood. Not enough to be from a serious injury, but enough for her to recognize it.

(Senpai's veins open and bleeding as he presses a desperate hand to stop the bleeding and she will not think of that.)

Shattered glass at the base of one wall. Broken furniture.

(Senpai's poor body slammed repeatedly through heavy wood until his bones are dust and she will not think of that.)

She catalogued each item as she passed through, and filed it away.

(There is wailing all around her and in her but it is not her.)

Rubble in the hallway. Round holes and gouges in the floor and the walls.

(A sword that passes through Senpai's body and into the wall behind she will not think)

A tear wide enough for a person to pass through in the screen door to the backyard. Outside, more damage. Furrows torn into the dirt and grass. A ragged hole in the side of the shed, like a small bomb had gone off.

She knew. She knew what this was. She knew.

She refused to know.

(Burned blasted dismantled to component atoms she will not)

Her eyes tracked it all, and she knew what it meant long before she admitted it to herself.

She knew, and she hadn't tried hard enough to stop it before it happened.

She'd known this would happen, but she hadn't let herself know it.

Not signs of a struggle. Signs of battle.

Signs of war.

The one that had done this had been stronger than a human. And if they weren't human, they were there for a reason. And if they were there for a reason, there was only one reason that would lead to-

"Senpai, your hand," she asks, pressing her own to her mouth. There is something there, something like a cut or a bruise, and she hates it when he gets hurt like that. It doesn't happen often, he's usually so careful, but-

He pulls up the sleeve. The cut is not a cut is not a bruise it is a mark. A familiar mark, but one that is unformed, indistinct. No. A breath hitches in her chest and-

No, no, no. She will not think that. She will not consider that. That would be too much, too cruel, and she will not allow herself to believe that fate would be so heartless. Fate is cruel, she knows, but she suffers so that the people she loves will be safe. It's the logic of a child, there is not a finite amount of suffering in the universe, she knows this, but it keeps her sane in the face of horror that most people could never imagine.

She suffers so Senpai will not suffer. She suffers so Shinji, heartless though he can be, will not suffer. She suffers so her friends at the Archery club, distant as they are, will not suffer.

"grandfather…" her own voice. halting. fearful. her fear cannot be changed because he is fear. "do all masters need to be killed?"

a laugh. laconic. warm. "well, you can keep one or two as playthings, if you like." the perfect doting old man.

skip. time is fluid. memory imperfect.

"we will eliminate those that are dangerous to keep alive, but those who will not be obstacles can be spared."

she must fight she will fight there is nothing but the fight she will-

she will-

she-

she cannot.

"i will give rider to my brother"

body tensing. shaking. it has not yet begun but with these words her fate has sealed and the crawling burning horror will begin and she must be ready or she will not be herself anymore.

a rueful smile. a gracious spread of the hands. "it cannot be helped." no anger. no vindictive edge. more words. more meaningless babble, but there is relief. relief until something cuts through. "although" her grandfather says. as though an offhand thought and nothing more. "the tohsaka kid's chances look pretty good, don't you think?"

her sister…?

her sister.

her sister her sister her sistersistersistersistersister

will kill him.

but that won't happen. she tells herself this. a thing she must believe. a thing she must make herself believe.

she has given up the only card she could have played to protect him.

only masters must die in this war and he will not die because he is not-

"I guess I cut myself fixing dinner last night," he laughed, playfully embarrassed, pulling his sleeve back down over it.

He is-

No.

He could be-

No.

Senpai is not-

"A Master," she breathed, and the coiled fear threatened to burst forth. She grabbed it by the throat and forced it back down. The Feeling Sakura screamed wordlessly, silently, while the Surviving Sakura took over.

That's what she told herself, at least. She couldn't stop the wailing and the screaming and the boiling churning clawing of the living fear inside of her. Her heart beat too hard but not fast enough. Her mind ran like lightning but didn't move at all. Her body moved through space in eons and in milliseconds. Everything about her was too much and nothing at all.

This realization… This realization.

Senpai was a Master.

(She'd known this would happen when she saw him practicing in the shed.)

This realization.

(She should have stopped him.)

Senpai was a participant in the Holy Grail War.

(She could have done something to save him.)

The same one she'd refused to be a part of.

(Now, she had no way to protect him.)

Out of sight had been out of mind but it was no longer either. Senpai had a Servant or did he even have that yet and someone else had tried to kill him. Someone else had maybe succeeded, and no, she forced Feeling Sakura back down into her temporary prison. Senpai was not dead, he was out there in the city, somewhere. Maybe hurt. Maybe in hiding. (Her breath came faster, but she didn't notice.) She had to find him before one of the other masters-

(HE IS GOING TO DIE AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN)

Shinji.

Shinji would kill him. Shinji would kill him and be happy to do it and she'd handed him the loaded gun herself. (Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, but it didn't matter.) She loved Nii-san, despite everything, and she didn't want him to get hurt, but she knew him, too. He was not a good person.

(Neither was she, but she hid it better.)

Rin would kill him. She wouldn't enjoy it, maybe, but she would do it without hesitation. Her sister would take everything she had left.

And there were four other Masters, all of whom would be out for his blood. She had to do something, but she couldn't do it alone. She needed to find Senpai. She needed someone. She needed… she needed help.

She needed to find her Nii-san.

Thanks for sticking around, everyone. The And Hell Followed With Him train got no brakes.

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