Minutes later, the glow of the moment had faded, and Sakura tried to stand strong as the other two Masters both gazed intently at her. Her stomach churned and roared; confusing swaths of emotion painting themselves across her inner landscape like some kind of impressionist nightmare. Senpai put a hand on her shoulder, and because she was stupid and weak, her breath caught again. "We'll be back soon," he said softly.

"Don't leave," Tohsaka commanded sternly, as though Sakura were a particularly stupid dog.

"Just take it easy, okay?" He continued with bright, earnest eyes. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to." Somehow, seeing him like this was worse than fear would have been. He didn't understand what he was doing. He didn't understand that he was throwing himself right into danger's toothy maw.

Please don't go.

"Don't let anyone other than us in," Tohsaka went on. Whatever rapport they'd worked out apparently didn't apply to Grail War business. Sakura was back to being treated like a child who was determined to put her hand on the hot stove. "I don't want to come back to an ambush because you let someone in the front door."

Sakura just nodded silently, eyes fixed firmly onto the ground. "Please be safe."

Please stay with me.

Senpai blinked, then fixed her with a brilliant grin. "Of course I'll be safe. We'll be back soon." It was like he didn't even know that he wasn't just popping down to the grocery store. Had he even considered what kind of thing he was trying to find? What would happen if he found it? She wanted to tell him, to make him understand that he should be afraid — but to say it would be to make it real.

She'd rather think about him coming home safe. She'd rather…She didn't know. What exactly would you rather do? The question hovered in front of her, begging to be answered. She put it off a little longer.

(No longer buoyant, she slipped under the surface.)

Senpai and Rin lingered for a few moments, bickering about meaningless things, then turned and started walking. Sakura stood at the gate, hands clasped before her so tightly her knuckles ached, and watched them go. They fought, but not unhappily. It was a kind of getting along, she thought, even if it was one she didn't really understand.

Something tugged at her chest, a thickening of presence, and she tensed. "Assassin? Are you… are you here?"

There was no response, but the tug became a heaviness. Was that him? Or was that just her own fear?

"Take care of him, okay?" She said, feeling a little silly at talking to the empty air. She didn't even know if Senpai's Servant was there. "Don't let him get hurt. Please." Her voice broke, and she closed her eyes so tightly she saw stars. For a moment, she felt his arms around her once more, and she shivered in the cold. I won't let it change you. "He's all I have," she said, her voice so quiet even she could barely hear it, shame filling her at her own words. He couldn't hold her again if he was… Don't think it.

Silence.

He wasn't here. She was alone. The pull faded into nothing, and the only weight left in her chest was the one she lived with every day of her life. So she had probably imagined it.

She was so stupid, wasn't she? For all of this. For everything she'd done and everything she'd let happen and everything she assumed. Stupid, stupid Sakura.

Rin and Senpai were almost out of sight when she realized she was still wearing the jacket. "Senpai!" she called, willing her voice not to break. It didn't, but if Senpai had heard, he was ignoring her.

He… he probably wasn't ignoring her, right? Of course not. But...

The thought didn't take the sting out of being left alone. Not just stupid, was she? Worse than stupid. Useless. Worthless. It shouldn't feel like a fresh punch to the throat. It shouldn't make her want to cry. After all, had she ever been anything else? A dog didn't cry because it was a dog.

Sakura drew the coat tighter around herself, tried to tell herself that the warmth it gave her was his, and went inside.

"Oh yeah," Rin said mysteriously, gazing up at the forested hill that hid Ryuudou Temple from view. "There's definitely something super cursed going on over there."

Shirou blinked, straining his atrophied magical senses to try to sense any of what she was talking about. A breeze ruffled his hair, just a touch chillier than he was entirely comfortable with. A few birds sang in the distance. A child yelled somewhere distantly to his left, and off to his right, a car horn honked. Nothing that he would really describe as 'cursed'. Still, he put a grim look on his face, as if he could tell something was wrong without being told. It seemed like the right thing to do. "What is it, do you think?"

"The energy flow," Rin said simply. She pointed to a few different points in the empty air. "There, there… Over there, too. Rivers of mana." She pressed a thoughtful fist to her chin, tapping her lips with it. "They're like… power lines. Mana is getting pulled from somewhere and funneled into the temple."

"Pulled from what?" Shirou asked. "You mentioned a leyline, right? Shouldn't that be more than enough power for whatever's going on there?" He didn't know much about magic, but leylines were a fairly simple concept. They were places of power, and with some doing, a Magus could pull from them like a battery.

"Hmm." Rin narrowed her eyes, gaze fixed onto a distant point in the air. "It would be for most Magi. It's difficult to harness the full power of a leyline, even without this extra supplementation, which means…" She sighed heavily. "We have two possibilities. Either the Master there is incompetent and wasteful, or…"

Shirou didn't like where this was going. "Or?"

She gave him a serious look. "Or it's a Caster-class Servant we're dealing with." She paused, a thoughtful shadow passing over her expression. "Or both? It could be both."

Trying again to feel what she was describing, Shirou glanced upwards. He didn't feel anything in particular. The forest just seemed peaceful to him. "We'd have to deal with them anyway, right? Besides, you're a pretty good Magus, right, Tohsaka? How much better could this Caster be?"

Rin rubbed her eyes tiredly after shooting him a particularly pointed glare. "You train a lot, so you're pretty strong, right? How much stronger than you could Berserker be?"

He grimaced. "Point taken." His body still hurt from that encounter, and he would not soon forget the raw power that had been pointed firmly in their direction.

It didn't help that his mind kept wandering. He was trying to keep up, but he felt like he was juggling quite a few balls at once; there was a lot he was trying to work out in his head. A lot to understand. The Holy Grail was evil, and had to be destroyed, according to his Servant, who didn't really seem like the lying sort. Sakura was being… he didn't really know what. Menaced by some strange darkness. Assassin carried cryptic portents of the future. It would soon be time to discuss all of that with Rin, but frankly, he thought it would all be much more productive if he waited until she had cooled off a little first.

Hey, by the way, he imagined saying to Rin where they stood, the thing you've been working your whole life to get is a lie, and we have to destroy it. Also, Sakura has a weird magic disease we don't understand, and we need to take time out of our busy schedule to figure it out. This is more important than what we're doing.

What the hell is wrong with you? The Rin in his head asked him, and then turned him into a frog.

They weren't going to have their hands on the Grail in the next few minutes, after all. It could wait.

Rin closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Archer? Assassin? You guys here?"

"I'm listening," Archer said, at the same time Assassin intoned, "I am present."

Rin glanced up at the general direction of the voices. "What's your read?"

"The boundary field is incredibly strong," Archer said calmly. "I might be able to break through with my Independant Action, but it'd leave me weaker." Than I already am, he left unsaid. "And I wouldn't be receiving much of your mana while I was in there. Not to mention that it would definitely set off an alarm. If that is Caster up there, we can assume they're going to be ready to respond quickly."

"Normally, I would be able to do the same," Assassin continued, "but with our energy flow as it is, I do not have the excess energy to sustain myself. I may in essence shut down the moment our connection is weakened.

"Sorry," Shirou muttered.

Assassin didn't dignify that with an answer. "There is but a single point of weakness. The main entrance has been left almost unfortified. This is no doubt intentional, as the main entrance greatly favors the defender. The only route in is a long, narrow staircase; an attacking force would be made to proceed in single file. The anti-Servant field lines the stairs, as well; even should we pass the entrance unimpeded, Archer and I will not be able to deviate from the steps."

Archer took over. "If we want to take a look around, though, the staircase is our only real option. Anything else leaves us wide open to a magical counterattack, if the strength of the boundary field doesn't do Caster's job for them."

This all seemed like… a lot. Shirou raised a hand tentatively. "If we know that Caster is here, don't we have what we came for? We've identified the Servant at the temple. This was never going to be an assault."

"There is vital information we still do not possess," Assassin responded. Shirou hadn't known Assassin very long, but he got the feeling that Assassin was enjoying lecturing him almost as much as Rin had. Not for the first time, he wondered how long it had been since Assassin had talked to anyone. "The fact that the Servant in question is Caster has not been confirmed, as the evidence is mainly circumstantial. Additionally, we do not know the identity of the Master, nor do we know the identity of the Caster; let alone what their Noble Phantasm might be. If we can learn any of those things, our chances of success increase drastically."

"Assassin's right," Rin concurred. "We need to know as much as we can. Archer?"

Archer shrugged. "I'm not crazy about this," he said, "but I don't think it'll be a repeat of what happened with Berserker. My magic resistance is fairly high. I'll take point. Shirou will follow behind me, and Rin will cover our backs."

Rin nodded. "I can do that."

Shirou wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he didn't exactly have a better one. They were right; this was likely the best chance they'd have to gather information with the element of surprise. "Hey, Assassin?"

"Yes, Contractor?"

"Just… in case things go really wrong," he said, trying very hard to keep the nervous edge out of his voice. "I'd like you to stay in spirit form if you think Rin and Archer and I can handle it, but…" He took a deep breath. "If things start looking very bad. You have my permission to fight." The tips of his fingers tingled with phantom pain, and he shivered.

"I needed no such thing, but I shall abide by thine wishes," Assassin intoned. "I would like to judge thy capabilities, in any event."

Shirou laughed a little derisively. "I don't have many of those." What was he going to do? Strengthen a stick at the enemy? "If I fight, I'll get my ass kicked."

"Then the war is already lost," Assassin said. "Perhaps thou should reconsider thy position."

Shirou sighed, picked up a nearby branch, and began the long, arduous process of strengthening it into something resembling a weapon.

They stood at the gate, the seemingly endless staircase yawning before them like the jaws of some unimaginably vast creature, waiting for its next meal. This close, even Shirou had begun to feel something, though he couldn't identify what, past a sense of unease and the raising of the hair on the back of his neck. Sweat dripped down his cheek, and he rubbed at it with his sleeve. (Tohsaka hadn't said anything about his pathetic magical performance a few moments ago, but she'd watched every moment.) He wasn't unathletic, but the events from the day before left his body feeling like a wet kitten.

Archer had taken physical form, the familiar black-and-white swords gripped tightly in his hands. He looked tense, the way he had before the fight the previous morning, and all the snide humor had gone out of him. Rin's lips were moving soundlessly, doubtlessly preparing some spell to be unleashed at the first sign of trouble.

None of them were particularly thrilled about entering. No one seemed to want to make the first move. "Are we doing this?" Shirou finally asked.

Rin jumped, then looked grumpy. Archer shot him a sideways look, filled to the brim with disdain. "This is delicate. Rin needs to make sure we're prepared for the boundary field. It could be dangerous."

As if on cue, Rin slowly extended a hand, and a gentle pulse of power pressed forward, breaking on the boundary like water against a dam. She closed her eyes, muttering, and the energy formed a loop that she continued feeding power into. The circle turned lazily, then expanded until it was wide enough for a person to step though. Carefully, she lowered a hand, breathing just a little harder. "There. We should be able to pass through safely. Like Archer said, it's weak here, but bypassing even a flimsy field like this is almost impossible."

Without further conversation, Archer passed through the portal, careful not to touch the edges. He didn't react otherwise, and he didn't burst into flames, so Shirou followed.

As his body moved through, as he passed through the magic film, pins and needles shot through him, as though every cell in him had fallen asleep; that was bearable, though. Unpleasant, but a tickle compared to what he'd dealt with recently.

The feeling faded quickly, but Tohsaka let out an undignified grunt as she stepped into the circle. "Ow!"

Shirou glanced backward, concerned; she was intact, but glowering at her own spell and rubbing her upper arms. "Are you okay?"

Outrage and something else warred on her face; she finally sighed and nodded, looking defeated. "I'm good. Let's keep moving." She gave him a gentle push, and he obliged by resuming his climb. They moved slowly, cautiously. Shirou halfway expected a wall of fire to pour down the staircase from above, or else that the stairs themselves would flatten into a slide and threaten to break their necks as they tumbled down, but at first, nothing happened. The forested mountain stretched out around them, tranquil nature. Peaceful. (Strangely, there was a discarded pizza box just off the left side of the path that stuck out like a sore thumb; the one real sign of modernity that touched the temple steps.)

They were about halfway up when a girl's voice, high and clear, rang out from before them. "It's obvious what you are," she said. There was bravado to her words, but there was emptiness just under the surface. Something about it sent a pang through his chest, "Normal people wouldn't do what you just did. They'd just walk right into it, and their minds would get fuzzy enough to miss anything weird. You gave yourselves away with all that magic stuff."

"You seem pretty familiar with the boundary field," Rin said offhandedly. "Caster."

Archer was standing more still than Shirou had ever seen him before. The only movement was the gentle sway of the breeze on his long red coat. It was strange; he didn't feel that tense battle-readiness coming off of him anymore.

There was a tired giggle that seemed to come from all around them. "That's pretty funny."

Archer spoke quietly in a strangled tone. "Rin…" Shirou frowned at his back, but didn't get a chance to speak.

Rin growled. She didn't seem to have noticed her Servant's distress. "What's so funny about that? Are you saying I'm wrong?"

Golden light gathered and swirled, resolving after a moment into the shape of… of a child, sitting on the lip of the landing about a dozen steps up. Or if not that… She couldn't be older than… what, thirteen or so? Long blond hair was held back by a big black ribbon, a single lock toward the front standing stubbornly at attention, and striking green eyes gazed down solemnly at them. In both hands, its edge touching the steps, she held a long, thin golden sword — almost a sister to the one Archer had summoned yesterday. Lily-white armor over white clothes. Lines of exhaustion or sadness touched the corners of her eyes, a kind of dejected resignation. "You are, but I don't blame you. You can probably tell now-"

Archer made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a gasp, and the girl stopped short, startled. Her eyes flicked nervously to Shirou and Rin. "Is he okay?"

Archer spoke, and though it was still halting and muddled, Shirou realized he had been saying a word. "Sa… ber…?"

The girl frowned. "It's the sword, isn't it? Really gives it away." She tapped the tip of the blade on the ground in a careless way that probably would have dulled a normal blade. Tink, tink, tink. "So what does that make you? Assassin? Archer? I haven't met them yet. Not very sneaky, though, so my money's on Archer. It's weird you've got swords, though. So maybe you just aren't very good at your job." There was no edge to the barb, as though her heart wasn't really in it.

There was something very wrong with Archer, and that unnerved Shirou more than anything else. Archer had been fearless in the face of so many things already, but now… He took an unconscious step back, down onto the step behind, and Shirou had to dance backward to keep from being knocked down. "Hey," he grumbled half-heartedly. What could possibly be so wrong with the girl — with Saber?

Maybe this is like the power lines, and I just can't feel what everyone else does, he thought, but when he looked back at Rin, she was wearing the same look of confusion that he felt on his own face.

"Hey, Archer," she called, putting some force into it. "What's wrong with you?"

Archer didn't respond. Shirou edged to the side to get an angle on Archer's face. He stopped; he didn't know what he'd expected, but this twisted mask of shock and horror wasn't it. "Archer?"

The girl hadn't moved from where she sat. She didn't look terrifying at all. If anything, she just looked a little sad and vulnerable. Like she needed a hot cup of tea and a blanket.

"Why haven't you attacked us?" Rin said. It sounded like a challenge.

Saber shrugged, idly switching her grip on the blade from one hand to the other and back again. "Not my job to attack. I'm here to guard the stairs." She nodded forward. "You take another four steps, and I'll have to do something. That's the line."

"Okay," Rin said simply, waving her hand like she smelled something bad, or was trying to wave away a gnat. "Archer, kill this pipsqueak." Shirou shot her a glare, but she just gave him a bored look. "She's so weak I can barely feel her presence," she explained. "She's standing right in front of us. Let's cross her off the list."

Saber didn't react to this in the slightest, but what really threw Shirou off was that Archer didn't either. He just kept staring, as though Saber were a riddle that he could solve with enough focus.

"Look at her," Shirou said, pointing for effect. "She's a kid. We can't kill a kid!"

"That's not a kid, Emiya," she said firmly. "She's a Heroic Spirit, summoned in her physical prime. This was just it for her, I guess. Now," she said with a sweet smile and a sweeter voice. "Archer. Kill the kid. Last chance before I burn a Command Seal."

Up above, Saber flinched, but that barely registered. Such a look of venom as Archer shot his Master, Shirou had never seen. It was strange seeing him direct that look at someone who wasn't Shirou. "We can't kill her," he said.

"Why not?" she asked, sweetness gone as if such a thing had never existed at all. "You're pragmatic. You know about war. Saber is an enemy Servant."

"No," he growled.

"No?" Rin shot back incredulously. "You are my Servant. Kill her."

Shirou imagined that this was what it felt like to see your parents fight. "Do you even hear yourself, Rin?"

"You know I'm still here, right?" Saber's voice had the monotonous tenor of someone trying to sound bored when they were anything but. "I can hear every word you're saying."

Shirou assessed the situation. Rin was talking a big game, but she seemed reluctant to actually burn a Command Seal on this. Archer was… he didn't know. Shirou watched his face carefully, but beyond the fact that the Servant was clearly upset, he couldn't read any deeper. It unsettled him.

"Fine," Rin said. "We'll do it this way." But instead of raising her command seal, she started running - not away from Saber, but toward her. The sudden flurry of motion combined with Archer's apparently compromised state of mind left his reactions stunningly slow, and in a moment she was past him. The soles of her shoes slapped loudly against the stone as she ascended.

Rin reached the fourth step above where Archer stood, and Saber lunged faster than any human should have been able to — but then, she was a Servant. Her sword flashed golden in the sunlight, nearly blinding Shirou for a moment, its point driving toward Rin's chest. She was going to die, unless—

With a scream of frustration, Archer grabbed the back of her coat and yanked her back, swinging his sword in a lightning parry in the same smooth motion. The harsh sound of metal on metal echoed throughout the forested hill, and for a moment, the two of them stood there in a strange tableau. The red-and-black sword hadn't shattered, the way it had when he'd tried to deflect against Berserker's massive weapon; it held strong, and he held it in only one hand. He was so much bigger than her, his reach so much longer, even taking into account the length of her sword. It would be a short battle.

Saber seemed to be having the same thought, but the emotions that flickered through her wide-open face were unreadable as she darted backward, feinted to the left, and thrust again. Again, Archer parried with the white sword in his right hand, and from that deflection she flowed into a series of lightning-fast blows. The echoing parries were cacophonous, Archer meeting every last one.

This was something very different than Berserker, Shirou thought, standing side-by-side with Rin. A fight between equals. Neither of the two fights he'd seen had been that. Archer stayed on the defensive at first, dodging and blocking and making half-hearted, easily parried swipes. He must have been reading Saber, learning her fighting style. Where her weaknesses lay. Shirou tried to do the same, suddenly entranced by the flow of battle, the motion of the weapons. She didn't have a tremendous amount of power, he thought, but she made up for it in speed and dexterity. Swords crashed again, and—

There, he thought, feeling a small swell of pride. She left herself open for a second there. Now he'll be able to use that the next time it happens. He wasn't exactly an expert swordsman — his clash with Lancer had proven that — but he'd learned a lot from sparring with Fuji-nee. He knew a mistake when he saw it.

The pride soured almost instantly when he remembered what exactly he was looking at. Archer wasn't fighting an equal — he was fighting a girl at least five years younger than even he and Rin. How could he analyze such a thing with so much cold detachment, as if this were nothing but a friendly round of kendo? Saber came at Archer with a vicious uppercut, and was thrown slightly off-balance by the defense. Shirou's throat closed in horror; he was about to watch this girl die. But she didn't die — she recovered her balance, the moment passed, and Archer never even seemed to have recognized it was there.

Shirou frowned.

Saber wore a look of intense concentration, her face red with exertion and focus as she swiped, stabbed, lunged. She was graceful — except for the moments when she wasn't. And now that Shirou was keyed into the right wavelength, he could see that Archer wasn't attacking at all. He made a show of taking swings, but each one was wide and slow. If he'd fought this way against Berserker, he'd have been eviscerated in seconds.

She was doing everything she could to kill him, and he was barely breaking a sweat.

He glanced to his side at Rin. She looked somewhere between angry and thoughtful, eyes flicking back and forth, following the movements of the blades. Sparks flew, dim in the bright sunlight. "Archer," she said grimly.

Archer didn't respond. Shirou couldn't see his face.

"Why aren't you doing your best, Archer?" She may not have been a swordswoman, Shirou thought, but she apparently knew her own Servant's capabilities better even than Shirou did. "Why are you going easy on her?"

Saber was the one to react to that; she jumped backward, landing in a defensive stance out of immediate reach. Her eyes were somehow both hard and full of shame. "I didn't ask you to go easy on me."

Archer didn't follow; instead, he deliberately stepped down the stairs until he'd crossed her invisible line in the sand. "What's your name?" he asked the girl.

Saber blinked, and she lowered her sword a little. "Saber," she said, and her voice was confused. "Didn't we already-"

"Not your class," Archer growled. "Your name. Your True Name."

A lost look passed over Saber's face. "I can't tell you that, even if I wanted to." She looked as though she were growing more uncomfortable with every passing second. "What's yours?"

Archer didn't reply. "Rin," he said calmly. "We have what we came for. It's not Caster, here. It's Saber. We were wrong."

Rin stomped up and jammed a pointer finger deep into his back. "And we can kill her." She shook her head, incredulous. "And don't give me that moralizing shit, Archer. You came to my room last night because you wanted to kill Shirou in his sleep. This is about the same level as that."

Shirou choked. "You wanted to what?"

Archer turned slowly, and his face was like a thundercloud. "That's my limit. I won't hurt a kid. I can't stop you from using your Command Seal, Rin, but if you make me do this, then from that moment on I will do everything in my power to make sure you lose this war." Shirou had never heard a voice sound so utterly inflexible. "I will follow only the strictest letter of your demands, and I will find a way to ruin every direction you give me. You ready to lose over this?"

Rin looked as though she'd been slapped, and as her face went red with indignant anger, she grabbed Archer by his coat and shook him. It was like trying to shake an oak tree. "Archer," she hissed. "What is this?"

His own face was darkened almost to the point of illegibility. "I will not kill a child."

With a confused frown, not considering his actions at all, Shirou stepped forward. He needed to defuse this. He had to stop this. However it was going to end, it would end badly. Horrifically. He couldn't let that happen. "Knock it off!" he yelled, clapping a hand roughly on each of their arms-

a radiant smile framed by golden hair-

a flash of blue

hard to make anything out

the fog of time and lost memory weighs heavy

a girl-

the girl?

older

maybe just wiser

their hands interlinked on the hilt of a sword-

that sword?

screaming a word that he can't make out-

loss and adoration and guilt and envy and disdain and friendship and bitter regret and love turns to loss turns sour turns to anger and grief and and i ask of you are you my-

Shirou's hand jerked backed as though he'd touched a live wire, memory that didn't belong to him arching electric through his body. Archer moved like lightning himself, planting a hand on Shirou's chest and shoving him hard enough that he lost his already precarious balance. The world spun, framing the anger — it was definitely anger, now — boiling across Archer's face, and he wondered if this was how he died—flying down the stairs, with his brains splattered stupidly on the stone steps.

Rin was the one who caught him, her hands in his poor, abused shirt. She strained and heaved and almost went over herself, but she managed to keep both of them upright. With heavy breath, she let go of him, and he wavered anyway.

The flashes of memory were already fading, the way you forgot a dream more and more the longer you were awake - but one thing didn't drift away: the bone-deep, aching sense of loss and confusion.

The recognition.

"What did you do?" Archer hissed, the blade in his right hand falling to the ground and evaporating as he grabbed Shirou by the throat and lifted him high onto the air. The black and red metal of his second sword gleamed cruelly in the afternoon light.

"Archer!" Rin's voice cut through like a knife. "Back off! What the fuck?"

Shirou couldn't breathe. Pressure pounded in his head, his blood demanding oxygen and unable to circulate properly, and his lungs burned after only a few moments. His hands scrabbling against Archer's, he looked down at the man choking the life out of him, intent to kill pouring off of him — and yet, even as his legs kicked feebly at Archer's chest, what he felt was not fear, but an empathetic sadness he didn't quite understand. "You're not afraid, are you?" he asked; though he couldn't speak with no air, he could mouth the words. "This... isn't fear."

Archer's knuckles tightened on his throat, and stars swam across Shirou's vision. "What did you see?"

Shirou shook his head, the fog of confusion clearing a little even as a different fog descended upon him. "I don't know," he whispered truthfully, carefully shaping each word like his life depended on it. "I saw…" What had he seen? "You knew her, didn't you?" This was between them. He had a vague idea that Rin was yelling and ineffectually punching Archer in the side, where he'd been cut open. "When you were alive."

The tip of Archer's sword shook violently, his eyes widening just a hair. For as reserved as he was, in that moment it was strange how easy to read his expressions were. His grip loosened just a hair, and a trickle of air passed Shirou's lips. "Like I told you both, I don't remember anything about who I am," he said, and though he gave no specific tell, Shirou knew at a bone deep, intuitive level that he was lying. Why did he know that?

"But you remember her," Shirou forced his lips to say.

The world pulsed and pounded and grew muffled. He was losing consciousness, he realized, and only then did the fear really kick in. He struggled, but by now he could barely do even that.

A dark voice cut through the blackness. "There is no time," Assassin said, and even in his current state, Shirou could hear the urgency that had never been there before. "We must leave."

Archer dropped Shirou, and he landed hard, doubling over and sucking in great whooping breaths. His head ached horribly, but the color had begun to return to the world. Even Rin had been startled out of her anger. "Leave?" She asked dazedly. "But Saber's not strong enough to-"

"It is not Saber," Assassin boomed, rattling Shirou's already pounding skull. "Another Servant nears. Retreat will soon become impossible. Caster is here."

Thanks as always to everyone who reads and shares and comments!

Next chapter: Knights of Shame