"Issei, aren't you going to eat your lunch?" Shirou Emiya looked over at his blue-haired friend. He had come to school during the Grail War without his servant, even though she had insisted he stay away.
"I just want to sleep right now. Leave me alone," Issei groaned, his head resting on the table.
Shirou's curiosity was piqued. "Did you not sleep last night?" The thought reminded him of his own troubles in the Grail War, but his friend couldn't possibly be a Master, could he?
"Nah, I just haven't been sleeping well lately." How could he sleep well? There had been a lot of gas leaks recently, and as the student council president, he couldn't stop worrying about the students' safety.
After their brief exchange, they both fell into a comfortable silence. Shirou finished his lunch, then left, walking the halls and waving to people he knew. He didn't particularly dislike anyone but wasn't particularly close to most people, either. As he walked, he spotted Sakura. She had been different lately, seeming happier, and that lost look she sometimes had in her eyes had disappeared. He also hadn't seen Shinji in a while and didn't know why he never came to school anymore.
"Hey, Sakura," he called out to her. She had been talking to a group of girls, but she turned and smiled brightly at him.
"Hey, Shirou, what's up?" she said cheerfully. Her smile was radiant enough to brighten the night sky.
"Have you seen Shinji recently? Why hasn't he been attending school?" Shirou asked, hoping she had information, since she was Shinji's sister.
Her smile visibly dimmed. "Oh, I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him in a long time." Her tone grew lighter and quieter, as if remembering unpleasant memories.
"Don't you two live in the same house?" Shirou furrowed his brows he was confused.
She shook her head. "No, I recently moved out and started living with a friend." She hugged her arms together and looked at the floor.
This was the first she had mentioned it to him, but he realized he had never asked, nor did she have to tell him everything that went on in her life. "Oh, okay. Well, if you see Shinji, tell him to come back to school." He smiled at her, and she nodded back.
As Shirou walked away, Sakura sighed, the memory of Shinji bringing back unpleasant thoughts. She clutched her stomach in pain as weakness coursed through her body. "These worms," she muttered.
After his chat with Sakura, Shirou went to class. He later heard an announcement that all after-school activities were canceled due to the gas leaks. He was going to stay anyway; he had a few favors to complete.
Soon the day ended, and he was casually strolling upstairs, his mind occupied with his own thoughts. As he walked, he looked up and saw Rin standing there, her arms on her hips, her gaze fixed on him.
"Unbelievable. Are you crazy, coming to school without your servant?" she said, folding her arms and casting a condescending gaze down on him.
"What choice do I have? Saber can't dematerialize, so I can't bring her to school," he replied, challenging her gaze.
"Then don't come to school. A Master running around without a servant? You might as well paint 'please kill me' on your back," she lectured. "Emiya, do you know what a big idiot you are?"
Shirou was stunned. "An idiot? Masters don't fight with other people around, right?" he shouted at her.
She let out a sigh of exasperation and dropped her arms. "Do you see any other people around?"
Shirou looked around him. The empty classrooms and halls revealed that everyone had already gone home for the day.
"Wait…" Understanding slowly dawned on him.
"Finally understand it now, Emiya? This morning, I went from merely exasperated to furious," her voice rose at the last part of her sentence. She began to pull down the sleeve of her right arm, showing off the glowing circuits of her magical crest. "After all I told him, why is he doing everything he can to kill himself?" Shirou's eyes widened at the sight of her magical crest.
A magical crest! Alarm bells went off in his mind.
"Yes. This is a manifestation of the magic my family has passed down." She fully pulled down and folded her sleeve, showing her arm and magical crest to him, making sure Shirou saw every bit of it. A cocky expression crept onto her face. "I can invoke any spell etched in here by simply passing mana through it." The grin on her face didn't fade an inch.
"I've sent Archer away. The Gandr shot will suffice for you," her tone dropped.
"Gandr? Isn't that just a Nordic curse?" Her face lit up.
"That's right, a perfectly simple curse," she said, pointing her finger at him.
"Wait, Tohsaka, are you crazy? We're at school. If we make a scene, we don't know who might show up!" he screamed, hoping to reason with her.
"I'll worry about that when it happens. My policy is not to miss an opportunity when it's present." Shirou gritted his teeth and took a step back. "Besides, I don't know if I can take much more of your bumbling around."
"I don't want to fight—"
"Well, I want to fight you!" she interrupted. "Just prepare yourself, Shirou!" She unleashed a flurry of Gandr shots.
Shirou dodged and jumped back, falling to the ground. A large dent appeared in the floor where he had been standing.
"That was Gandr?" he said, now genuinely concerned that she was trying to kill him.
"Thought I had already made it clear, Shirou." She ran down the stairs, and Shirou quickly got up and started running. When she made it to the hall, she shot more Gandr shots while he ran. "Hold it right there!"
He was grazed by a couple of the shots on his shoulder and winced in pain. "You could seriously hurt someone with those things!" he shouted behind him as Rin started running after him.
"If you're scared of a little pain, then hold still. I'll finish you off quick!" She quickly shot a dozen more Gandr shots at him mid-sprint. Shirou turned the corner and jumped down the entire flight of steps as the shots exploded behind him.
"That doesn't sound like mercy killing to me!" he yelled as he kept running.
"Shut up! Then stop running around! I'm getting worked up because my target won't stand still," she retorted. She jumped onto the wall, her circuits already activated, and used them to propel herself down both sets of stairs. Mid-jump, she released more Gandr shots. One grazed his ankle, causing him to cry out in pain and crash into a classroom.
He cursed himself, quickly closing and locking both doors. Rin tried the doors but knew they were useless. Inside, Shirou took a couple of steps back to catch his breath.
"The locking, bird cage... Echo! Das Schließen," she said, placing her arm on the wall. A large magical circle appeared on it.
Shirou ran to a random desk and put it in front of him. "Trace On." He infused the desk with his mana, hoping it would protect him. The spell activated, and a flurry of Gandr shots pelted the room. All the other desks were destroyed, and his desk slowly started to crack. Before it could break, the attack ended.
He picked up a random metal rod and used reinforcement on it. But before he could go out and face her, she threw a blue gem through the top window. It exploded, and he closed his eyes and braced for impact.
After the explosion, he ran out of the room to face Rin. "Put down that silly weapon. You have no chance of winning, Emiya."
Before they could fight, a scream was heard outside. Both of them turned their heads and ran. When they made it outside, they saw a girl passed out on the ground. She wasn't dead and was still breathing, but there was a noticeable bruise on her head.
"Who could have done this?" Shirou was confused.
"Tohsaka..." His senses prickled; a disturbance pressed at his spine, as if something just behind them shifted in the air. "Tohsaka, move!"
He shoved her aside as a blade flashed where she had been standing. Shirou jumped back, trying to spot their opponent, but he saw nobody.
"Emiya, explain yourself," Rin snapped, rising and brushing dust from her clothes.
"A sword almost pierced you, I swear," he muttered, replaying the moment in his mind. He knew he wasn't imagining it.
"Shirou, we should go. We have to get home and prepare," Rin urged.
Shirou frowned. "What do you mean? We should at least get this girl to safety." Why was Tohsaka acting like this? Did she have no heart?
Footsteps sounded around them, and Shirou instinctively raised his metal rod in defense. A sword manifested along the metal rod he was using and slammed against it in a clash.
"Tohsaka, help!" he cried.
Her neck twisted in confusion, then she gasped in shock. She fired a quick Grindr shot at the invisible target, but it vanished before it could strike.
"Who are you?" Shirou demanded, half-hoping the answer wouldn't reveal a servant, half-dreading the possibility that their foe was a servant.
The only response was a low chuckle from the unseen assailant. "Hm, it seems my master doesn't want me to attack you. Call yourself lucky."
The evening returned to oppressive silence, and Shirou stood tense, waiting for an attack that never came.
"Shirou, what was that?" Rin whispered, alarm edging her voice. "Why would an invisible servant try to kill us? Who is their master, and why would they spare me and Shirou?"
A/N: If Rudeus were to have a reality marble how would it work?