Genesis 4: Rose With Thorns
"'Ey, wake up, you."
The tongue seemed almost foreign to him.
"C'mon. Wake up."
As the awareness of light returned to his eyes, Shirou squinted reflexively. Struggling to pry his eyelids open, he fumbled for his senses. He was rewarded with a splitting pain across his body, agony escaping from his lips.
"Geez, he's been beat up pretty badly, hasn't he?"
"Indeed. He's quite harmless at the moment."
Regaining himself, Shirou propped himself up into a sitting position, bearing the pain for the time being. Still dizzy and light-headed from the blood loss, he was barely able to clear his vision. When he was finally able to distinguish the two figures before him, a feeling of shock and irony consumed him.
His attention was diverted to the taller one; his appearance was clearly reminiscent of a Servant, and it would have been quite a peculiar coincidence if he wasn't one. A metal shroud of grays and blacks encased the fairly lean figure; from what Shirou could judge, the Servant's build was not much different than his own. His archaic armor was ornamented by all sorts of engravings and crests – a sight not at all new for Shirou. However, there was some inhuman air to him, even for a Servant. Behind that prison-bar visor, even beneath the sunlight, there wasn't the slightest bit of a face to be seen. No contours – nothing. A pair of pupils just gleamed indifferently, its line of vision indeterminable.
"What's the matter, you? Never seen one of these before?" A slender hand curled into a fist and knocked playfully on the suit of armor, pulling Shirou's gaze to the other figure.
He noted, before anything else, the girl's sarcastic smirk. It was the first time he'd ever laid eyes upon her, and yet he knew she must have always worn that expression. She looked to be in her late teens, and she seemed to have the proper look of arrogance for her age. She bore the look of a model, with the defining look of those perfectly-conditioned coffee and cream highlights parted into two subtle, symmetrical arcs framing her radiant complexion, a few light bangs shielding her tempered cobalt eyes. Her figure was immaculate, and her form-fitting jeans and jacket made no effort to hide it. Her outfit was, indeed, casual, but her general poise and appearance simply made her look underdressed.
A look of irritability materialized on the Master's face, and her voice rose significantly as she pointed to her breasts.
"What's the matter, you?! Never seen any of these before?"
Letting out an exasperated sigh, the girl turned away, muttering, "Geez, you sure like staring at things, don't you?"
Shirou blinked, his gaze scattering to the ground. "Another Servant," he muttered beneath his breath.
The young Master perked up with interest, her look of annoyance vaporizing as quickly as it had appeared.
"Eh? How do you know that?"
Shirou kept his silence, gazing up at the girl from his position nonchalantly. The Master simply glared back for a while, seemingly trying to read his intentions. As annoyance looked to be returning to her expression, she suddenly lit up with revelation.
"A-ha, I get it! You don't trust me enough to tell me, right? Well, it's alright. You can open up to a pretty girl like me'
Blinking, the girl leaned in towards Shirou curiously.
'What's the matter, you? Mommy told you not to talk to strangers? Here, I'll tell you my name, and then I won't be a stranger. You can call me Christie – that's with a 'C.' Came all the way here from the U.S. of A. Oh, and you probably can't tell, but this lump of metal is Rider. You got that?"
The dark "lump of metal" hadn't moved an inch since Shirou woke up, even after Christie's comment. Clearly, he demonstrated much more discipline than his Master. Taking advantage of Shirou's incapacity for much movement, the girl moved forward and patted Shirou's hair in what he felt was perhaps the most condescending way possible.
"What about you, kid? Want to tell me your name?" Shirou couldn't help but notice the smirk again. That damned smirk.
"Don't patronize me," Shirou muttered, pushing her hand away lightly but firmly, still unaccustomed to her dialect. The Master's apparent friendliness seemed to dissipate with this gesture.
"Look here, you. Maybe you don't realize it, but I'm being as friendly as I can be right now, and you're just wasting precious minutes of time by getting all emotional right in front of my eyes instead of just getting to the point and telling me your name. You say you know about Servants, so you know that I'm a busy girl. I can't have you bothering me with this petty stuff, alright?"
Silence.
"Alright! Bye-bye!"
Even through her miniature tirade, Christie still had that damned smirk planted on her face. Even as she and Rider began to walk away, she still had that damned smirk on her face. She did nothing but ridicule him, and apparently, she was a being dripping with nothing but sarcasm.
What reason did he have to give her his name? What reason did he have to trust her?
None. Absolutely none.
"Shirou. Shirou Emiya."
The duo gradually came to a halt. As Christie turned to look over her shoulder, Shirou saw her quintessential smirk peek out from the corner of her lips.
That damned smirk.