Ilya dreams.
As so often in the last decade, shadows and dark whispers haunt her, rising from the depths of her subconscious, amplified by the betrayals and abandonment she suffered. Her beloved mother, the only fully cognizant member of her clan (and no, Sella and Leys do not count, being specifically designed as her caretakers) who showered her with so much affection - before she was torn away by her father and the cruel necessities of war. Her father, the distant, cold, calculating man, who planned the betrayal and played the role of the loving husband and father for close to ten years, only to snap his own daughter's neck in the end, with sadistic glee in his eyes. Aunt Maiya, who always behaved so coldly, distantly, her eyes flickering with jealousy when she watched Ilya's parents - and who stood aside, allowing the Executor to ram a trio of Black Keys through Irisviel's body, condemning her to oblivion. The indistinct outline of a boy, who took Ilya's place at her father's side - another tool of the Magus Killer to ensure that his damned legacy would continue, someone to inherit his Family Crest and secrets alike.
Yes, Ilya knows them, sees them in the soft embrace of sleep. The urge to enact justice, to avenge her slights, the incalculable, horrific betrayal those close to her had done is, as always, tinting her dreams with crimson shadows.
Yet recently, there are other dreams, feelings smashing their way into her restlessly flitting mind. Visions from another, distant place, a desert planet where death is a constant fact of life. A warrior race in slow decline. A young leader betrayed and almost killed by his father, breaking sacred trust and bonds of blood alike. Grim images of battlefields drenched in blood, the former leader venting his rage, trying to forget, to heal the wound on his soul. She can feel the bleak, self-destructing future looming before - and then the other images come. Emerald eyes under a mop of fiery hair. A sleek vessel, a home away from home. A krannt, once more - a place, a company to belong to. Family, despite the lack of blood ties - or rather, forged by shedding blood alongside each other. Facing mind-bogglingly vast and powerful beings from the dawn of time - without fear or regrets. Dragging a dying race back from the brink, giving them a future. Standing against the terror from the void, always a bulwark against the nameless shadows, no longer alone - and the wound in his heart but a memory, never forgotten, but never again dominating his mind.
And Ilya wakes up, her eyes looking for her Servant, the solid presence materializing at her side, a hand gently ruffling her hair.
Sakura dreams.
Such occasions are a luxury for her after spending a decade in Zouken's vicinity - she dare not allow herself to relax her control, lest he worm his way into her soul deeper than he already has. Those rare occasions are when she can gird herself to endure further, to keep hanging on. Even then, the darkness is a constant companion to her, shadows writhing in the murky recesses of her mind, urging her to take revenge on her sister, to give the lucky older girl a taste what she was forced to live through - and she knows, feels that but a fraction would break the other, and it would be so easy, so enjoyable, so endlessly satisfying and just. At other times, she dreams of her sempai, her main source of strength, the one person she hopes, desires to reach out and save her from the morass of corruption - yet simultaneously, the one she dares not even show a hint of how stained, how corrupted she actually is. She knows all too well that if sempai were to turn his back on her, she would break; or worse, give in to her desire to drag him down with her, to have and possess him, to use and be used by the clueless boy.
And always, she feels Zouken nearby, the old monster ever circling her, probing again and again at her defenses, trying to nudge her to a more suitable direction, mold her into a more obedient, useful tool in his quest for Akasha. Even the parasite she calls her brother is but another of the ancient's pawns, useful only to break and degrade her. She can barely pity him. She wants to show him the darkness within, paint the walls and sheets with his diluted, diseased blood. She wants to drown Zouken in a tide of burning shadows. She wants to feel sempai's hands around her waist, his lips on hers as they watch the world succumb to darkness.
A faint, greenish-white tinge at the edges of her dream-vision. Four cold, pitiless yellow eyes blaze in the darkness, the ever-present whispering, slithering shadows within and around her cowering under the pressure of untold millennia. Dimly, she is aware of the kaleidoscopic tapestry of horrors that send a surge of desire pulsing through the darkness within, as a whole species is driven to extinction, turned and mutilated into mindless servitude to grind away the pitiful few survivors until only one remains. She feels the pull of madness and despair during the long, cold sleep of the ages, with trillions of voices declaiming him for failure, exhorting him to take revenge - and then the other images show up. Blazing emerald eyes under a mop of fiery hair. A scion of the once-primitive race, an adequate inheritor of the mantle and duty left behind. Others flicker along as well - young, primitive races, yet they treat him as a companion. They give him a chance for vengeance; yet they never let him face the trials alone. The fight against all odds, holding back, then turning the tide of void-dwelling darkness, burning it to ashes in the end, as the voices of a dead race howl triumphantly as their ancient killers are torn apart in the fury of the galaxy.
Sakura starts awake with a muffled cry, wide eyes looking for her Servant. The ancient warrior takes form near her bed, yellow eyes burning into dull purple, and his voice is but a soft hiss in her ears.
"Despair is a most potent weapon in the hands of monsters. Do not succumb to it now, Tohsaka Sakura."
Within the depths of the Greater Grail, the entity/being identifying itself as Angra Mainyu stirred. It felt there was something off about these summonings - yes, they were happening as foreseen, but it could feel the outside interference, the slight pulls on the skeins of fate. It would need to take steps as well, it could not allow free reign to those who would deny its birth. Shadows stirred and fumbled blindly around, the leylines fluctuating in answer, as hundreds of sensitive mortals in the Pacific region woke screaming, their minds blessed with a glimpse of what was to come.
In a forbidding temple in Fuyuki, a heartless priest and the primordial king shared a glance, as they both felt a distant pull, a gentle caress - as if formless digits caressed them gently, with loving cruelty. Their time to step into the light and take center stage was coming soon - and they both rejoiced in that knowledge.
In Kowloon, a blond magus stared with equal measure of dread and elation at the trio of marks shimmered faintly on the back of his hand. His maids, despite their conditioning and experience, shivered at his cackling.
In a distant station, a bearded Ancestor frowned and leaned a bit forward in his chair as the complex array before him shifted, an extra layer shimmering to existence, like an oil slick over water. After a brief contemplation, he leaned back with a smirk to continue basking in the radiance of the ever-shifting blue star.
Fuyuki City, 14 days until the Fifth Grail War
Rin checked the summoning circle for the third time, painstakingly comparing it to the one outlined in her father's notes from the previous Grail War. She carefully laid out the gems in the required pattern, internally lamenting the loss of the rather expensive and powerful tools of her family heritage. Still, it could not be helped - and when she held the Grail in her hands, material vanities like these would be of no concern.
She knew she would summon an extraordinary Servant; her father before had summoned the King of Heroes, and unlike him, Rin was an Average One, armed with one more generation's knowledge and power. Coupled with her innate intellect, meticulous research, attention to detail (she even remembered to account for the discrepancy in her home's timepieces!) and sheer determination, Rin felt an unwavering certainty as she stepped close to the summoning circle, and started to chant.
The German words flowed easily, the entreaties to the family's actual distant ancestor (of which connection she was not supposed to know but being an inquisitive child, she found out from a dusty journal) echoing within the vault under her family manor. The lines and symbols shone with a blue radiance, her long hair and short skirt both ruffled by the swirling winds of prana as she channeled ever more power into the summoning. Her mind was calm, focused, fully immersed into the ritual.
She did everything correctly, accounted for all possible mishaps, was prepared for any distractions - except a sudden tremor in the leylines of her city, that is. For but a brief moment, the Second Owner and the Master of the Grail War had to focus on different issues - and that was enough to send her power out of control.
The summoning circle flared with a dizzying, blinding array of insane colors, forcing Rin to shield her eyes from the glare. The prana invested into the ritual dispersed with a deafening explosion that shook the manor, and the young magus could hear sounds of destruction from above.
She raced up from the basement, her Crest lighting up with power, a Gandr forming at the tip of her finger as she got ready to lay waste the intruder who dared to force its way into her home and ruin her carefully-laid plans. With a gesture and a short chant, she dispersed the dust cloud obscuring the room, her body moving on autopilot as she tensed for fight.
Then she saw the creature, and her jaw dropped, not even noticing the Command Seals on her hand forming fully, and the carefully calibrated bond snapping into existence between them.
No, Rin's focus was more taken by the fact that there was a tall alien lazing on one of her just recently dilapidated couches. The creature reminded her of a bipedal dinosaur wearing a high-tech, silver-blue armor, its predatory mandibles flaring as it saw her, the blue eyes twinkling with humor (did he just wink at her?), the scarring at one side of its face lending him a dangerous charm. The mandibles twitched again, as the lipless maw moved, forming words.
"Nice place." His eyes lingered on the elegant, Old World furniture, the 18th century silverware, and the various, strategically placed knicknacks. "You don't usually see stuff like this outside a very classy antiques shop, at least not in my time."
Rin had to fight off a blush. That flanging, warm voice, with the undertone of wry humor…
"The scenery in front of me isn't half bad either."
Rin flushed scarlet, her previously lowered hand rose anew, the dark glow of a fully charged Gandr forming at her fingertip, her stance shifting to combat readiness. The walking dinosaur laughed, the sound sending shivers down her spine - yet she still spotted the expert, assessing gaze of the Servant that flitted across her form, cataloguing her posture and tells. The being rose, towering over her, its mandibles flaring in a wry grin.
"Ease off, Master - unless you really want to test my reach and your flexibility this soon into our working relationship." He nodded towards her, his voice becoming more formal. "Servant Archer; or you could just call me Archangel, for old times' sake."
The young magus knew then and there that her Servant would be the source of a lot of headache for her.