"What...?" Rin froze for a moment, then looked around herself.
Dazing heat showered her from every direction, the burning sun bouncing against her from the sands, as the desert wind caused long-dead, crucified bodies to seemingly howl in despair. Obvious black stone ruins sat forgotten, barely poking out from the sand here and there, with a mostly-buried road of paved stones stretching forth into the sands. And she was buck-naked, that was definitively noteworthy.
Except for one thing. A beautiful gold bracelet covering her left forearm and wrist, with a tangerine-sized emerald so full of magical energy* it'd probably glow in the dark.
She was curious about it, of course, but a six seconds long furnace-hot gust of sand bearing wind all over her exposed body immediately drew her mind back to her whereabouts and situation.
She felt heat blasting against her from everywhere, as if standing on an enormous oven's grill, an experience made extra miserable by the hot sand now filling her mouth and nose. Sun coughed and quickly covered herself with both hands, reinforcing her feet as she ran to the long shadow under a tall slab of black rock.
"Ah~ so much better~" It was a sanctuary. It offered no protection against the coarse hot winds, but it did at least feel much cooler under her feet.
With that little hell temporarily taken care of, she immediately noticed the richness of the magic energy in the air, high enough a lesser mage may be intoxicated by it, and a regular modern person would have gone into shock and died.
Nothing but ruins, and a few bushes and grasses growing more brown than green at the base of the numeus ruins in the area, except for a particularly impressive stone slab, covered in gently-glowing green runes across the stone road. She was completely alone, except for the vultures and the sands, so she lifted her hands off her body and took a better look at the bracelet on her left arm.
'Oh great. It's cursed. Of course it is.' She sighed.
It was a damn potent death curse, too, but that wasn't all. She could feel it constantly trying to push into her mind, though not hard enough to overcome her mental defence.
Rin thought about removing the damn thing, but... the curse stirred and hissed at her, so she decided not to mess with it. For now. Instead, she looked at the rune-covered slab across the road, and sighed.
'This is going to suck.' She thought. The soles of her feet burnt as she ran over the sizzling road and into the runestone's shadow. No sooner had she done so, the runes glowed bright and a deep, arrogant voice spoke directly into her head.
Behold, bonded one, the very boundaries of civilisation!
Beyond the passage of our highways lie the wild places of the world,
where untamed savages make endless war upon each other.
You cannot pass into the endless wastes, Enslaved.
Your bonding prevents it
Return. Follow the road. Any road.
All roads lead to the city.
'Waitwhat!?' She was so surprised she took a step back, then quickly regretted it and hurried back into the runestone's shadow. "Ohnononono~!"
That 'Enslaved' bit sounded bad. It sounded really bad. She took another look around, keenly aware of her vulnerable state. None but the vultures overhead, and nothing but stone, sand, and a few desert plants somehow making a living in the stone's shadows.
Speaking of which, it (the shadow) was getting shorter, which meant it was the early morning rather than the evening. Once the sun reached its zenith, there would be nowhere to take shelter against the heat, and the wind was beginning to feel hotter and dryer with every single breath.
She decided to make her way into 'The City,' hoping for shelter, though still quite worried about the implications of 'Enslaved'.
She'd rather walk on the sand next to the road than on top of it, and spare herself the burns. Sun she did so, Rin soon came upon a scrawled note. held on a table-sized rock with some stone. She thought it was genuinely surprising it hadn't been blown away by the wind, honestly.
It wasn't in a language she was familiar with, yet she felt the bracelet's involvement as she read it anyway. And then she soon wished she hadn't.
I am beaten. Left to rot amongst the ruins of the past.
There are others here. Slaves, bandits, and cannibals.
'Oh this just keeps getting better and better.' Rin had felt silly for worrying about preserving her modesty against the vultures, yet now she quickly covered herself, and looked around with a worried expression, suspecting cannibals and bandits behind every stone.
Exiles from lands I've never heard of.
'...right. I have a hunch on why.' Both her and Luvia had come looking for Shirou, who himself was sent here two weeks prior by their teacher to 'motivate their progress.'
Some of them try to scrape a life from the wasteland,
scrabbling in the rocks and dirt for their own place.
I cannot go on. The life I left behind haunts me.
The sun over the glittering spires of Belverus is
forever denied to me. The smell of my daughter's hair...
I will pass the ghost fence, and this cursed land will
finally end me.
To whomever reads this note, I leave the last of my
water, and this message.
Stranger, you have my pity, you do not know how
cursed you truly are.
"Lovely. Let's avoid the ghost fence, whatever that is."
Looking around, she found no trace of any water, but there was a suspiciously waterskin-shaped dust-free bit next to the note.
'Must have missed it by a few hours... no, the wind would have covered the silhouette already, so a few minutes?'
Now that she was looking for them, she noticed footprints on the sand. About the same size as hers, but clearly made by footwear instead of bare feet.
'Perhaps if I hurry, I can catch up.' With that, Rin Tohsaka picked up the pace, reinforcing her legs as she started a light jog. It was quite easy, really. Magical energy was thick in this world, so much so that keeping herself reinforced was an effortless endeavour.
And there were more ruins ahead. Almost doubtlessly the remains of a small settlement, but so thoroughly collapsed it was doubtful there would be anyone around... and then she felt the gandr going off. Close by, quite a few of them. She ran towards them and briefly hesitated about setting foot on the hot stones that made up the floor in the ruins.
'Ugh.' Indeed, she was sure her feet would have dire burns if she hadn't reinforced them, but it still hurt to walk into that furnace.
And promptly stopped as a large winged thing smashed against the floor in front of her, a sickening wet crunch announcing its death.
"E~ep!" She half-cried, half-whimpered as the creature's blood and gore splashed unto her and the surrounding ruins.
"A naked gorilla~!" It took both of them plus one of Zelretch's toys to come looking for Shirou, so finding Luvia wasn't much of a surprise.
Rin looked at Luvia from top to bot.
"How~? Where did you get clothes from? And that waterskin? Give me some, you insipid nouveau riche!" Though simple and coarse, the blonde did manage to secure some sandals, pants and shirt. Even a pair of rough-looking gloves.
Rin especially noticed the waterskin hanging from Luvia's waist.
"Oh? I don't see your name on it, miss gorilla." The blonde looked at Rin from top to bottom. "I'd call you shameless, but nudity is indeed a gorilla's natural state." Rin's eyebrow twitched as she looked at the blonde, just knowing what would come... "Ohohoho~!"
There it was.
"I'll let that slide if you give me water, and what the hell is this thing?" Rin pointed at the dead lizard with both hands.
"How should I know?" Replied the blonde. "It was chewing out a corpse, so I killed it."
"...did you steal that person's clothes?"
"Just whom do you think I am?" Luvia stiffened.
"A grave robber, apparently."
"I most certainly am not!" Luvia looked at Rin. "However! ...I would not mind giving you some water, if you swear yourself to me. I care for my servants, you know? Ah, I guess you'd be a pet, though."
Rin charged. There was no windup time, so she basically materialised in front of Luviagelita, struck with both hands at the blonde's solar plexus, and knocked her back straight into a tall dune, its sand flying high before the impact could be heard.
The cascading sand burst as Luvia charged out of it, dashing at Rin in a straight line, leaping forth and spinning in mid-air to land feet first on the brunette's chest, just in time for Run to crouch, grab her by the ankles and smack her into the sizzling hot black stone floor, hard enough to make the sand fly up from it.
With practically no recovery time, Luvia surprised Rin by jumping backward, grabbing her by the ankles, and pulling while spinning their bodies in mid-air, immediately pinning her face down unto the stone and mounting unto the brunette's back as she tried to start a grappling hold, just for Rin to grab hold on the now visible edges of the stone plate they were fighting on, and pulling hard enough to drag herself free and slam Luvia down face first into the stone, though they both bounced back unto their feet and were smacking into each other before the sand finished raining around them.
"Ah!" Rin gasped as Luvia surprised her, rolling low unto the floor to kick at her inner left thigh, throwing her off balance for long enough for a second kick to smash her against an even farther dune.
The blonde ran next to Rin's flying body, seemingly escorting the brunette on her flight, before grabbing her by the chin and smashing her head-first into the sand, adding even more sand to the air around them.
Rin cursed, and kicked while still chest-deep in the sands. Luvia dodged with ease, and took the chance to grab the back of her right knee, yank her out of the sand, and push her down against her readied knee.
"Uhn!" Pain rushed forth from the back of her hip.
Rin reached out and point blank, shot as many gandr as she could against the blonde's side.
"Ah!" It was Luvia's turn to cry out, the barrage of curses tearing a hole the size of a ripe pumpkin on the side of her shirt, and leaving a bruise to match.
They rolled apart, got to their knees, leap unto their feet, and were about to begin shooting at each other when they heard a gargled, wet growl coming towards them.
Rin and Luvia looked towards it at the same time. One could almost call them apes, but there was nothing natural about the squat thing that was wheezing its way to them over the nearest dune. Its twisted legs so tiny in comparison to its body as to appear almost vestigial, while its arms dragged along the sand. Its body was hunchbacked, its head resting almost at the front of its torse rather than atop its shoulders, and its porcine eyes glittering with malice.
Not a cousin of mankind, nor a child of evolution. Instead, the squat creature oozed amateurish, hazardous curses of the sort only a raving madman would perform. The worst was that it had attached some armor bits to itself, showing a spark of intelligence trapped inside that mockery of a body.
"You don't think we could talk to it, do you?" Luvia sounded calmer than she felt.
"I doubt it could line two words together."
All in all, it wasn't that big of a threat. It was obviously clumsy and misshapen, to the point they were genuinely surprised it could move as quickly as it did. Plus, it was barely half their height.
The hunchbacked, broad-shouldered thing charged, and the girls genuinely froze when dozens of the things came charging behind it over the hills, some wielding branches as if they were clubs, some dragging large bones over the sand, and.
The girls jumped to their feet and began shooting at the rushing mob, each taking down six and seven before the rest simply slammed into them, burying them under a hill of fetid flesh and skins that felt more like scabs. As one of the things let out a miserable gurgling whimper, it began to inflate from within, the curses inside its body running out of control, its muscles bloating red with magical energy and its skin tearing before it exploded like a bomb, blow everyone away and dazing the girls even as the rest of its kind rushed them again.
"Wha-!?" Rin cried out when Luvia immediately grabbed her by the ankles and began spinning her in place.
She threw her as far as she could, tossing her unto the 'roof' of a mostly-crumbled building, then got mobbed again. Luviagelita punched straight through the head of the nearest thing, then kicked behind herself to pop another like a zit.
Rin caught herself in mid-air, spun about, and prepared to land on top of what may have been a roof, or more likely, a second floor.
Luvia grabbed her first kill, pressed a foot against it, and kicked it at the mob, creating a thin path through it as the body pushed through, then cried out as two more of the things blew themselves up next to her. The first blasts dazed and knocked the wind out of her, the second knocked her unconscious. The mob rushed her, smacking at her with clubs of wood and bone, and she knew no more.
Rin was shooting before she even landed. The things popped like bugs squished under a rock, but the mod still managed to grab Luvia's body by limb and hair before starting to run away.
"Oh no you don't!" Rin landed while shooting at them, then jumped down and gave chase.
Seeing Rin at ground level, all but the three things dragging the blonde turn around and rush at her, but with distance, a clear line of sight, and her body's reinforcement, Rin has little problem kiting the dumb things to death.
"Luvia, you idiot..." She complains as she realises she's alone.
Thankfully, anyone can follow a fresh trail on the sand, especially one as obvious as this one, but it soon disappears into the grass and plants growing by the shore of a wide river.
"Now what?" She stops and considers.
Turtles with legs as long as hers trot and walk about leusurely, their hatchlings running around them. Massive nests the girth of a king-size bed hold eggs the size of melons. There's palm trees and bushes, and plenty of insects buzzing from flower to flower.
It is when she pays attention to the river that she remembers how thirsty she is, so she surrounds the 'turtles' and makes her way to the water, entering waist-deep into it before bending down, cupping the water in her hands and drinking her fill before simply crouching down, letting the water soothe her sore skin, stranding up and looking around.
Her footprints are the only ones entering the water. She stares at them, realises those things didn't cross the river, at least not there, so they must be nearby.
'Alright, let's find that idiot. I can't believe she had the nerve to save me... so I'll save her, that will show her!' Yes, Rin is the true tsundere queen.
She makes it to the shore and looks around. Rocks, weird long-limbed turtles, plants... ah.
One of those 'things' just killed a tutle hatchling. Its parents... the larger one just jumped at the thing, the distance between them disappearing in a moment as it slammed both front feet unto it! Two more of the things emerge from behind some rocks, one of them as tall as Rin herself, and wearing what looks like a shoulder pad strapped to its right upper arm and a cooking pot on its head. They pick up the dead hatchling and run away.
'I actually thought they'd help the other one. Whatever.'
They lead the brunette all the way to a cave at the base of a stone mesa.
Four of the creatures are... guarding is a big word. Mucking about, perhaps? They're just hanging around the entrance.
Sun could perhaps lure them away in groups, but...
'Luvia you idiot...' Sun curses internally.
...she doesn't wants to think about these things having their way with the blonde.
"Luvia you idio~ot!" Becomes her battle cry as she reinforces her whole body and charges the things.
They gurgle and wheeze while running at her. Two of them immediately begin to inflate, dull red magical energy beginning to combust inside their bodies as they get ready to blow, but Rin has seen that trick already. She dodges and gets ready to move, when she realizes that they seem pinned in place as their bodies balloon and burst. The explosion blasts boiling gore and magical energy in a rather small blast around them, so now she knows she just needs to step back a few steps to get out of their blast radius.
The third thing dies to a gandr, and Rin makes her way into the cave, dreading the darkness inside, then finding it gloomy, yes, but there's light coming from its depths somehow... and then she pauses. Bright red crystals. Some the size of her index finger, some longer than her legs, all of them glowing with so magical energy she could feel a huge evil smile creeping along her face.
She reaches out and dislodges a crystal longer than her forearm and thicker than her thigh.
'...I guess I'd bring the cave down if I fire this here?' Regretting her luck, she throws the crystal all the way out of the cave into the grassy outside, then grabs a handful of much more reasonably-sized crystals before stepping forth.
There's quite a few of the ugly things, but the cave is barely wide enough for two of them to come at her side by side, and with so much magical energy in the air, Rin has no issue just blasting gandr at them, popping them like grapes with almost contemptuous ease... until their 'champion' appears.
"Oh come on!" She complains out loud.
The thing is enormous, easily over twice her size, and her barrage of gandr barely slows it down, let alone give it pause. The enormous thing rushes her, knocking her against the crystal-embedded wall, causing the brunette to whimper in pain as the crystals bite into her back.
'Gottamove!' At least she wasn't impaled, and looking at how she was neatly rammed right between two crystals the length of her legs, she thanks her luck as she does so, then rolls on the ground to dodge the enormous brute as it charges at her.
"Here!" She lands a magic-reinforced spinning kick on the thing's back, trying to shove it unto the long crystal spears sticking out of the wall, but only manages to kick herself away. The thing barely even felt it. "Hngf!"
It turns around and leaps at her with agility it has no right to. There's a crunching sound as it lands on her left leg.
'Just a crystal, it just broke a crystal.' She doesn't has time to celebrate her luck though. The thing reaches down and easily wraps its infrahuman claw around her head, then lifts her so their eyes are even, her feet dangling in the air.
"Hn~ fetid!" Rin can feel her eyes tear up from the things' rotten breath on her face. She reaches for its arm with her left hand, her right hanging closed by her hip.
It grins and opens its maw to expose rows of yellow fangs and a sickly black tongue, then lifts her so her lower body is within easy biting distance, showcasing its malicious intent.
"Oh, it won't be like that!" She grins back and takes the chance to shove the magically charged crystals she had been carrying in her right hand into its open mouth.
These unrefined stones hold a poor charge, but she still didn't dare throw them inside such a place. All the same, it was worth holding unto them just in case. The thing's throat and upper chest are blown away, spraying gore all over Rin's hips and legs.
Rin kicks at it, her pedicured feet sinking twice into the obscene thing's wound before it reacts, lowering her while trying to hold the hole closed with its free hand. Its companions are dead, it can't breathe, and parts of it that were never meant to be visible are exposed to the open air as blood and gore pour out as if from a fountain. All the same, it has no intention of letting the girl go.
"You're dead, just notice already!" Rin cries out as she tries to free her head, punching and kicking at its massive arm time and time again with as much effect as a butterfly trying to take down a brick house.
It tries to howl, but can't.
The brute lifts and slams her face-first against the stalagmite.
"Hng!" She whimpers.
It smashes her into the rock again and again, until Rin bursts through it in a shower of tears, blood and dried-up salts, coming face to face with Luvia's body as it hangs from large crystals by its golden hair. Rin's heart sinks just as the thing lets her go and falls on its butt, trying to hold the hole closed with both hands, muck-like blood leaking out between its fingers.
Then darkness takes all of them.
*The translators of the Visual Novel came up with words like mana, prana, od, etc so they didn't have to deal with things like Rin explaining that 'The Grail is a conduit of magical energy for magical energy creating magical energy', so basically all them fancy words are just in the english version, are not really canon, and I will feel free to use them when/if/however I want.