[Five Years Later: 2/10]

BANG.

The shock of a sudden sound and vibration in unison woke Rin up with a start. She looked around in the state of utter confusion that follows a sudden waking.

Her head had been resting against a cool glass window. Outside was... a blur where the ground should be and a milieu of stars above it, untainted by urban lighting.

"Sorry, did that wake you, milady?"

Turning her head to the left, she saw an older Zakyr from the one she'd just been conversing with in her dream. Slightly taller and more elegant-looking, with better-kempt hair and a pair of rounded sunglasses over his eyes. His gaze was perpendicular to her and his arms were outstretched, resting on... a steering wheel. He was driving.

Oh... Right... I must have fallen asleep.

She yawned and stretched as best as the interior of the car would allow. It was hardly surprising. The two had just endured a horribly long flight earlier that day and Rin couldn't sleep on planes. Both she and her apprentice had jetlag. Once they'd secured a car, Zakyr had taken over driving and she had just curled up in the passenger's seat.

I dreamt of that day. The day we met... Why 'that' day?

"You can still probably sleep for another hour or two if you'd like."

Rin shook her head. She had already mostly come back to reality.

"I'm good, Zakyr."

A sleek, new sportscar tore through the empty night juxtaposed against a mostly-forgotten street that was already starting to wear away at the edges. Its driver was easily doing twice the speed limit, but that hardly mattered in this desolation. The purpose of the occupants was both clear and macabre: to fight, kill, and possibly die in the seven-hundred-twenty-seventh official Holy Grail War. Their destination was an American Ghost Town called Grimshiel.

It's a mistake to think of magic as a static concept. 'Sacred ground' this, 'consecration' that, most magi were truly limited by this archaic line of thought: that for power to exist in a place, it had to have been there to start with. Most magi would think that Boundary Fields were the upper limit of area enchantment. The concept of creating new sacrosanct ground, while well-known to the Church, was almost alien to the Magus Association. This was, in part, why the Einzbern's choice of a new host city was so brilliant.

The town of Grimshiel was originally an industrial mining town, located in northwest America. Until the 1980s, the population was about ten thousand. One day, though, some accident had occurred in the mining tunnels, what it was exactly wasn't clear, but the end result was the uncontrollable eruption of a mine fire. The tunnels collapsed or became an inferno in a matter of seconds. Several hundred workers were burned to death almost instantaneously and the city itself was bathed in a cloud of toxic gas. The collapse of the mines and the upwelling of poisonous gas rendered the city seismically unstable. Summarily, in the blink of an eye, the town became a portrait of hell. Relief efforts barely saved a third of the populace.

What mattered was that these old tunnels, filled with fire, toxins, and most importantly sacrificed souls inadvertently formed the perfect underground series of ley lines. Grimshiel was the location the Einzberns had chosen for their revival of the holy grail war.

The Church had almost immediately given their covert blessing primarily due to the desolation of the site. In the previous Holy Grail Wars, civilian casualties had always been a problem; even with near-instantaneous reaction and the highest-level warding spells, some people were inevitably killed in the crossfire. This was inconvenient as far as the whole 'preserving secrecy' thing was concerned. This was to say nothing of Masters who specifically hunted civilians for prana.

Here though, there were no civilians. Grimshiel was a genuine ghost-town. The ground was prone to caving in, the air was filled with carcinogens, and the streets leading into it were walled off. The only life that city would likely support for the rest of its existence was that of Masters and Servants, and that was even if one counted Servants as 'alive'.

It was a hostile environment, but nothing a Magus could not overcome. Both Rin and Zakyr had implanted purification gems into their trachea before leaving Japan. Other magi would have found other ways to deal with the toxic environment as well. Perhaps this choice of a dead town was fitting; having nearly lost their chance at the grail forever, every Magus family keen enough to know about it would be treating it as a last chance. This war would be more brutal than any that had come before.

Inside the car, Tohsaka Rin was sitting in the passenger seat, staring off into the empty night as her thoughts returned to her. Zakyr was driving in a seemingly pleasant mood. Perhaps it was his history in the borderline-luddite Einzbern family, but he constantly found modern technology as fascinating as a child might when playing with a new toy. Rin hated driving anyways, so she might as well let him play chauffeur.

She checked her watch. It was only about ten at night locally but they were still on Japanese time and neither had slept on the plane flight anyways. They were exhausted but neither showed it in any way apart from the dark circles around their eyes, and Zakyr usually looked like that anyways.

The pair had flown from London to Berlin to Istanbul to Oslo to Moscow, each visit accompanied by a hectic search, before finally landing in Fuyuki. They had stayed there for about a month making their final preparations for the Holy Grail War.

Looking over at her apprentice, Rin was pleased to see the edginess that Zakyr had been wearing previously had pretty much worn off. Staying in Fuyuki typically had that kind of adverse reaction in him. Despite Rin's guardianship of that realm, Zakyr made no attempt to disguise his disdain for it. She supposed it made sense, but at the same time it was something she needed him to swallow. As per usual, despite his complaints, he was willing to follow her lead.

Thinking about all this helped distract her from the fact that she was hurdling through a foreign countryside at a ludicrously fast speed in a steel box being driven by someone with no license who was wearing sunglasses at night.

"Hey, Rin?" Came Zakyr's voice. She turned to him.

"Yeah?"

"How long do you think it'll take to set up a base of operations once we get there?"

She sighed. Zakyr had brought up a valid point she'd been trying to ignore. As much as she'd have liked to have a proper night's sleep once they arrived, there was no place for it as of yet.

"A few hours, at least. If we get lucky and find some building's shell we can use, less, but I still don't think either of us are gonna sleep much tonight."

He gave a hollow smile in response.

"Not an issue for me."

Zakyr hated sleeping. Rin smiled to herself thinking about what a good watchdog he made by virtue of that fact alone.

"Anyways, we'll be arriving about four days before the summoning. That gives us more than enough time to prepare the ritual and scope out the land."

Behind his glasses, Zakyr's left eye twitched slightly.

"Prepare? I thought finishing our preparation was the whole reason we visited Japan?"

Her response was explanatory, but had a slightly mocking feel to it.

"Part of it was, but there's a bit to do once we arrive there as well - setting up boundary fields, summoning of familiars, and whatnot. Besides, what? I can't visit old friends?"

"You could have left me back in London."

"Then who would have kept me company on the flight?"

Her apprentice scoffed and Rin looked away again. Her eyelids still felt a bit heavy.

"... Actually... Maybe sleeping a bit more is a good idea while I can. Try not to hit anymore potholes this time."

"As you wish, milady."

She turned her back to him and smiled slightly. As opposed to how he'd been when the pair first met, her apprentice was now aware of how antiquated that title was, but he still freely used it, even switching it for "Rin-dono" when they spoke Japanese. Unlike the first time though, he usually called her that to indicate she was behaving a bit spoiled. Maybe she was, since he had to drive and she could sleep, but such were the privileges of being able to delegate.

Besides, I think you'd prefer I acted spoiled than cranky.

She slouched sideways in the leather chair and drew her arms inward as she closed her eyes. She settled back down remarkably easily. Her expression slackened and her breathing rate slowed. Out of the corner of his eye, Zakyr watched her delicate form relax gradually until she was asleep again.

Once Rin was asleep, Zakyr kept silently watching her for a few moments as he drove on the empty road, gradually slowing down. He carefully took his left hand off the wheel and rotated his shoulder to slide his arm out of his coat sleeve. He then repeated the process with the other arm. Once he'd slithered out of his coat, taking infinite care, he laid it on top of his sleeping master.

With both hands back on the wheel, his gaze turned back to the empty road before him. He pressed harder on the gas pedal, re-accelerating until the ground was once again blurred with speed. He stared into the blur as one might when examining the strokes of a painting. This eye-of-the-storm spectatorship was like meditation to him. Zakyr's movements became automated and he let his mind drift...