Hey, I am back after a bit of getting my life together and deciding that I really do enjoy writing fanfics as a hobby. Speaking of which yes this one is a redo of Fox Tale. Mainly because I found myself not holding much a inspiration to do it. Technically, this just might be a one off proof of concept for the fanfic. Who knows as I do have things planned for another fanfic and I want to see how this one goes. In any event it's good to be back.

Disclaimer: The following is a fanfiction. I own nothing.

"This shouldn't have happened."

Words that left the mouth of a young woman as she looked at what had just happened horrified her. Tears formed in her eyes only for her sadness to be broken by pain. Turning her head over she saw it. The dark pillar that was Greater Grail and inside it the nascent being that had caused all this suffering. The Lesser Grail was being called to it to finally complete the ritual of the Heaven's Feel.

"Even if I refuse," Another moment of pain came over her caused by the impatience of the creature inside of the Greater Grail. She knew what it wanted and her proximity to it was enough for it to pull on that existing thread. "It's already at the point that it can awaken without me."

Death would not stop it. Doing so would delay it, but right now, it was draining energy from the leyline. Furthermore, if she died a good portion of the mana within her will feed back into the Fuyuki Grail. Perhaps even with a certain level, the energy gathered would allow it to start acting more on its own accord. Looking back down her mind started to race on what she could do to stop it.

'I wish…' Her train of thought ceased as a bit of a realization. The only way to stop the Grail was with itself.

Time seemed to slow down between the two sides of the Fuyuki Grail. It felt like an eternity, even if no more than a minute or two had passed before the Lesser Grail stood up. No words were exchanged as she walked towards the pillar. The cavern shook as the Grail was, made whole and the bascent god within started to feel itself awakened. A wish made thousands of years ago prepared to manifest.

A disruption was felt through the Fuyuki Grail system. Another will was making itself known. One as strong as the wish made thousands of years ago but also more concrete. Already aware and able to fight for control. In this moment of disruption, control was lost over everything. Wishes were made and the ritual finished. Reality seemed to crackle for a moment as, in a flash of light, the Fuyuki Grail blinked out of existence.

Silence filled the cavern as everything seemed to die down. After a few moments, a low groan was all that was heard as the last figure in the cave finally awoke. One of the two wishes that had been granted by the girl whose will had managed to take control.

"Sa-sakura…"

Zelretch closed his book as the timeline that had caught his attention. Grail Wars hardly ever warrant his attention these days. Typically the Fuyuki Grail War rarely had anything noticeable happening. Sure, sometimes a different Heroic Spirit is summoned replacing one or another, a different Master is chosen, and even the outcomes could change.

What had caught his attention was a massive spike of mana. A near manifestation of a Beast of Humanity followed by the Fuyuki Grail disappearing from that Worldline. Normally he should be able to track such a thing if he wanted. However, it seemed that this one was just gone.

"Must have bounced off the Time Axis," A simplification but the gist of it was there. Time didn't flow at the same rate in all the Worldlines.

True most of them it was under a hundred years difference. Between the various Quantum Timelocks that decided history. "Which means either it ended up in one of the delayed Worlds or it's in the few outside of Proper Human History."

Zelretch figured it wasn't the former. For one there was no sudden shift in any of them which would signal a traveler appearing. Never mind, those would have a Beast of Humanity starting to manifest, which does cause notable disturbances in time. The only option means that whoever it was had to have gone into the latter of the two.

Searching for them was out of the question. Even if the Second Magic did allow him to view them, the issue was trying to pin them directly. Furthermore, when he tried, there was local pushback from the Counter Force that seemed more hostile to him. Zelretch had some theories on this but he didn't bother to try to test them out.

'At the very least, the Beast is unlikely able to complete its manifestation,' Without Proper Human Order, such a thing was impossible as far as he knew. 'Shame that the younger Matou/Tohsaka girl has perished in saving everyone from it though.'

Best case scenario she became the new core for it. Worse case scenario the Grail broke apart. In either event, Sakura Matou had sacrificed herself for the Greater Good. The chances of neither being the case were next to impossible in either event. With that out of the way, Zelretch stopped thinking about it as he went back to doing what he always did when he was in his Observatory.

Broken was the only thing to describe the feeling in her mind. The Fuyuki Grail had been hard to fight against. Had the pact still existed, it was unlikely that such a thing would succeed, but, even still, fighting against it hadn't been easy. A battle of wills between her and the half-formation of the wish of some forgotten village.

'Who am I again?' Her mind was destroyed by the whole fight to have her wish. To bring the Grail away from the World, it was in and fixed the mess that it had caused to those who had been caught in it. 'Was that really me?'

Memories flooded over her but they weren't fully clear. Some were just gone, others faded, and a few were incoherent with the rest. The last ones were not from her but echoes of what had been in the Grail before her. Overall, they seemed to be a mess, but slowly, they started to form a picture of her life, even if they were spotty and missing details.

'Sakura Matou,' At her name others came to her. With it and her memories settling back together a feeling of panic took over her. 'What happened, why am I like this?'

Recent events were the most blurred and spotty. The only thing she knew for certain was that she had taken part in a war of some kind. A ritual conflict with spirits of the dead, and when all was settled, she had won. The war was supposed to give the winner a wish on the Grail. There was something, though, that had made it complicated, and in the end, she had entered the Grail to stop what was going to happen.

'I win and this is what I get?' A bit of frustration at her predicament was mixed with a surprising amount of relief and sadness. Confusion came over her at this but she instead pushed those emotions to the side. 'No, this isn't happening.'

There was a part of her that refused to accept this. That one part was the one that was starting to become dominant. In her mind, something seemed to snap into place. A little instinctive thread in her mind that she found herself pulling on. The act of opening one's Magic Circuits was what she recalled. Something she had a long-gone memory of having accomplished, but how and why remained completely unknown.

A surge of energy started to flood as her mind saw everything seem to change. From her perspecti,ve everything seemed dark and almost made of nothing. With energy seemingly flooding about she started to realize that something was passing by her mind. Symbols flashing around, lines forming into circles, and languages that she was only vaguely aware of. As the energy continued to flood she felt something with her.

Before she knew it she felt something pull her in. White hair and red eyes flashed over her mind alongside a decaying, lifeless shadow that covered it. 'The Grails Core…'

It had activated and was pulling her deeper into it. To become one with the Grail Core fully. Sakura would have tried to resist but it was pointless as the Lesser Grail was finally pulled into the Greater Grail.

A swirling something was the very first image that flashed through her mind. What exactly it was, she did not know as there was nothing to describe it beyond that, even if Sakura knew. Next was a stream of random images of various objects and shapes followed by various symbols. She saw herself looking back at her with dull eyes holding on to a Grail while dressed in black and red ribbons.

The Grail was let go, dropping down as it turned and spilled its contents. Instead of water, a dark mud-like substance splashed out. As it did flames seemed to dance out of it. From under the flames, a dark shadow formed, which consumed the mud, the flames, and finally, the dull-eyed Sakura. The shadow stood in front rested and without form.

A tendril shot forward and Sakura was suddenly made aware that she had something that could be called a body again. No, it was her soul that was now lost within the Core of the Fuyuki Grail System. "You want me to be the new core."

It was obvious to her and something she just instinctively knew. Yet, unlike the remains of the soul that was the core she did not want this. There was something, someone, who she wanted. This device was created to make a wish come true, but I didn't get to decide that.

"No," Sakura grabbed the tendril as she looked at the shadow. Her will began to be forced onto it. "I refuse."

Truthfully the Grail could do nothing to stop or oppose her. It was mindlessly, only the knowledge of the Core along with the echoes of the failed Beast, existing to clash with an Ego. The shadow faded into Sakura as her soul subsumed all of it into herself. In doing so she could see it just outside the corner of her eye. A band of light, an indeterminate web, and a very long list of words. Before she could understand what it was, or rather before it could be revealed to her, everything started to change again.

A bright flash caught her as she felt herself being ripped apart. Physically and mentally a large pulse of energy surged through her. Unknowingly to her, she had triggered the Grail to try to summon something well, also trying to make it remove her from it. A strain was placed on the Grail until something finally gave.

Unconsciousness gripped her as her mind slowly put itself back together. Her eyes opened as she took a deep breath. A sudden jolt sparked through her as she realized what just happened. She had her body again and wasn't just a soul locked into the Fuyuki Grail. Shooting up she looked down at herself and all around her.

The first thing she noticed was that she was nude and all around her was a slowly decaying away sludge. Whatever power had been behind it wasn't there and so it was just breaking apart. The next thing she could properly notice was all around her was the crumbling remains of the Fuyuki Greater Grail. Much of being reduced to brittle, easy to break stone or dust that was slowly falling off the still standing parts.

Sakura tried to hand and felt her legs almost give out from under her. She managed to catch herself as she came to realize that her sense of balance was slightly off. 'It's like I haven't had a body in a long time.'

She felt like something was weighing on her but she ignored it for now as she focused on regaining her balance. Taking a few steps she looked around the area she had found herself in. It looked to be a large chamber in the middle of a cave of some sort.

Luckily for her the cave didn't seem to be a maze, and neither was it that hard to wonder through. A slight breeze was her first clue that the opening was nearby followed by the light of day from the entrance. What greeted her was the side of a mountain with a partly forested valley below a river cutting through the land. Not a sign of a modern city, and the sea, like how it is in Fuyuki.

Without any clothes Sakura had to opt for something to cover her. Her answer came not long afterwards as she knew she could shape shadows to cover herself. In doing so she became aware of two things. First, she knew a lot more about Magecraft than she had previously. Most of it though was alchemy focused which she had no way of knowing how to do any of it before. Secondly, was the amount of mana in the air. With her new knowledge she knew that this was far more than it was for this to be the modern day. In fact, it was more than it was hundreds of years ago.

The thought of being in the past was unsettling. From what she now knew it was possible in theory for the Grail to be able to time travel. Although, just because in theory it might be possible didn't mean that could be done. A more likely possibility was that she was in another World. Personally she didn't know which one she would prefer.

'I need to find civilization of some sort to get a better idea,' Her thoughts on this were pushed back as a stream was seen in front of her. One with water deep enough and clear enough to act as something of a mirror.

Looking down what greeted her wasn't what she was expecting. First was that she was actually a bit taller along with a more developed figure, especially around her chest area. Almost like she had grown and gotten a bit older. Her hair though had changed as no longer was it purple but a bright pink. Out the sides of her head were two almost cone shaped horns out of each side. Speaking of which wrapped around her left horn was a familiar ribbon.

'Did it survive or is it…' Sakura pushed those questions back for later. Out of the corner of her eyes though she thought she saw something tied up to a tree nearby. "That can't be a branch."

Walking up to it she grabbed and pulled out the tree. What greeted her was a metal arrowhead at the end. "Wait, is this copper?"

It looked like it was a copper, or at least a copper alloy arrowhead. One that did show much in the sign of resting which meant that it wasn't old at all. Looking in the way that the arrow had been fired Sakura noticed that there seemed to be a worn pathway. A sign that people had been here and did so frequently.

Looking at the arrow in her hands for just a moment Sakura walked down the path. Walking down she saw more signs that the area had been inhabited. Cut trees, and what appeared to be cultivated plants now growing in empty fields, and finally she found the village that this was all connected to. More accurately it was destroyed, some of the buildings burned down, and others trashed. Bodies could be found around the edges of the village. The dead showed early signs of decay.

At the very least she now knew that she wasn't in her time anymore.

Now typically I would go through and write something of about four thousand or more per chapter but I will be honest. I might not really be able to anymore. Those typically took a lot more time over the years, with it starting out at under a day or two before transitioning to more then a few weeks and I find that annoying. I will try to keep a bare minimum of two thousand words.