[Prologue: Part 4]

Several hours later, Tohsaka had finished her story. Now it was Zakyr who had fallen silent. Much of it was things he already knew - what the grail was and what it contained, for example. Most, however, was completely new to him. The true natures of Servants, their names, details of the battles he only knew from general descriptions, and above all else, the participants... Their stories...

Ilya had survived after the war. But.. Why didn't she... No. Could she... No. Did she mean to... No.

He was running his mind in circles from the influx of new information. There was an answer there. One he should have resigned himself to ages ago.

I've never been the one that was important. It's your nature... 'Courier'.

Dimly, he tried to force his mind away from the subject. This would eat him if he let it.

The quixotic scenario that he was currently drinking tea with a previous bloodline nemesis who had just saved his life dawned on him with an almost disappointing blandness. The boy was trying to think of what to say and finding no appropriate words.

With silence once again permeating the room, Tohsaka became aware of his plight.

"Well, I think we've talked long enough. You should be getting back to sleep so you can recover." She finally broke the silence.

He shook his head in response.

"No... I should go altogether... now."

As he tried to rise, suddenly he felt a sharp tug on his wrist and promptly got smacked in the head.

"The hell?"

Tohsaka yanked him back down into a sitting position next to her and gave him a serious look.

"I've said it already; wait until your wounds heal at least, idiot. Besides, we still have a lot to talk about."

Tilting his head in disbelief, Zakyr stared at her. He had information she wanted, this was true, but that wouldn't justify the concern about his well-being. Was she just a kind person or was there some ulterior motive? Nonetheless, as a former groom, he knew an order to be obeyed when he heard it.

In deference to Tohsaka's will, he nodded. She kept her eyes locked on his for a second before releasing his wrist.

"Good. Then go rest now... I have a lot to think about."

Wordlessly, Zakyr started back up towards the room he had awakened in. He knew he wouldn't sleep, but that was irrelevant now. For the time being, he wanted to be alone.

"Zakyr?" She called after him. He paused and turned his gaze to her.

"You can call me Rin."

After watching Zakyr disappear up the stairwell, Rin rolled her head back and sighed deeply. Everything in her life had just exponentially increased in complexity. The Magus Association had assigned her to uncover the truth behind a series of particularly destructive duels in the last week; an assignment she received practically by virtue of being the only competent magus in the country. All she expected was a pair of magi factions with some petty grudge.

Instead... I got this.

A renegade homunculus on the verge of death escaping a plot she'd deemed impossible, a painstaking reminder of fallen friends, and a prophetic warning about the resurfacing of a catastrophe she'd been certain was long-since buried.

Her slim hand tightened around her teacup's handle. She hadn't touched it and just pensively stared at the light reflecting off the surface for a minute before rising up from the couch and dumping it into the sink.

The Holy Grail War is coming back... It wasn't something that could be stopped. If it was, everything would have ended six years ago. So if you can't stop it... how to handle it?

With that thought, she realized she hadn't questioned Zakyr as much as she should have. Still, she'd have time to do that later. It wasn't as if the Grail War was starting tomorrow.

Rin sat back down into an armchair and found herself remembering Ilya, that eccentric young girl from the fifth Fuyuki grail war. In appearance, the two were just barely separated by the gender and his marks of maturity Ilya had lacked; otherwise they had the same fair skin, delicate build, and their eyes... that exact same shade of maroon. His, however, seemed more flat, more lifeless than hers. Perhaps it was due to Zakyr and Rin having just met, but his personality as a whole seemed more like that. He gave the impression that he had never formed what could be called an "identity" beyond surface interactions.

Wait. There's a logical inconsistency there. She noticed as she analyzed his mannerisms in comparison to the context of his speech.

For starters, running away from home is a difficult enough feat for humans, regardless of how richly it's deserved. It's obviously even more difficult when your former jailers have both the means and the desire to hunt you. From what she'd heard, the Einzbern castle was a guarded, bounded, and desolate place from which escape should have been impossible. And compounding that, homunculi have failsafe mechanisms... They shouldn't be able to contemplate running away at all. Fleeing in spite of all that should have taken a tremendous amount of charisma.

So what was his reason?

This motivational query was something she couldn't let sit.

Unpredictability is what happens when you don't understand someone's motives... And I'd hate to have just saved someone who wants to destroy the world or something.

Rising once again, she walked towards the stairwell. If he had gone back to sleep she could just leave him be, if not, for the sake of rectifying a discrepancy Zakyr shouldn't have issues answering a simple question. The townhouse Rin had been using as a temporary base wasn't large. She reached the room she'd left the homunculus in quickly. As she motioned to knock...

"Come in."

She wasn't startled. She'd made no attempts to mask her footsteps and had sort of suspected he might not be sleeping anyways. As per usual, she was right. As she entered, she found Zakyr slumped into the chair at the empty desk, staring out of the window at the last dying rays of sunlight. His wounds didn't seem to be bothering him.

"Something you need... 'Rin'?" He asked without looking at her.

"Zakyr... Why did you run?"

"..."

He didn't meet her gaze and said nothing for several tense seconds. Finally...

"I can't let the Einzberns have the holy grail."

Odd choice of words. Rin thought. There was another logical query following this.

"Do you want it for yourself?"

This time, Zakyr did turn to her and met her eyes with his own. This time, far from his prior glazed expression, they were full of fire.

"..."