Tony Stark's parties never disappointed. Expensive champagne was stacked into towers, Michelin-starred chefs prepared exquisite molecular gastronomy on-site, and the open-air pool reflected the well-dressed men and women alongside the brilliant California night sky.
"Wow! This little cube turns into water the moment it enters my mouth! It's so magical!" Orihime Inoue held a crystal-clear "raindrop cake," her face filled with wonder.
She was like a ginger cat that had stumbled into a futuristic World, filled with boundless curiosity for everything.
Tony held his wine glass, watching her with keen interest, and said to Coulson beside him, "See that, Phil? That's how a normal person should react. Unlike some others."
He cast his gaze toward the corner of the party.
Fujitora sat upright on a beach chair, with only a glass of water on the small table in front of him. He didn't touch the flashy food, just quietly "listened."
The sound of waves, the music, people's conversations and heartbeats, all intertwined in his mind to form a picture more vivid than what eyes could see.
He suddenly spoke, addressing the empty space in front of him, "Sir, you are stepping on the flowers."
A handsome blond man who was about to take a shortcut through the flower bed to get a drink looked down upon hearing this, only to see his custom leather shoes stepping on a delicate orchid. He awkwardly moved his foot away, casting a look of disbelief at the blind middle-aged man.
Tony raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his drink.
Interesting.
These two people sent by S.H.I.E.L.D.—one was as innocent as a blank sheet of paper, the other as mysterious as a deep well. He had already asked Jarvis to start building a specialized analytical model.
Unlike the bustling noise of Los Angeles, New York at this moment was wrapped in the cool midnight breeze.
Inside the presidential suite of the Waldorf Astoria, the air was quiet enough to hear the sound of ice melting in a glass.
Uta sat alone in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city that never sleeps below. The frenzy of the concert was fading, and a massive sense of emptiness surged like the tide.
The cheers of tens of thousands, the ocean of glow sticks, those faces obsessed with her—everything felt like a magnificent dream. When the dream ended, she was still alone.
Her manager had repeatedly urged her to get some rest, as she had appearances tomorrow. But she didn't want to stay in this golden cage.
She stood up and walked into the walk-in closet. A few minutes later, a girl wearing a black baseball cap, oversized sunglasses, and a mask, wrapped up tightly, slipped out silently through the hotel's employee passage.
Walking on the streets of New York, the oncoming wind carried the scent of "freedom."
She tucked her hands into her hoodie pockets, wandering aimlessly like an ordinary night owl.
The giant screens she passed were still playing highlights of her concert, but the people on the street were rushing by, and no one noticed that the World diva on the screen was currently brushing past them.
This feeling was novel. She wasn't the center of attention, "Uta"; she was just a nobody who could stop at the street side to watch a busker perform or laugh at funny dolls in a shop window.
As she walked, a rumble came from her stomach.
She then remembered that to maintain her performance state, she had only eaten a few energy bars all day. She should have eaten something at the hotel before coming out.
She rubbed her stomach in annoyance, her eyes scanning the restaurants along the street. Just then, an aroma mixed with the scents of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and fresh sashimi precisely drifted into her nostrils.
She turned her head and discovered a small Japanese sushi restaurant at the corner of the street. Surprisingly, there was quite a long line at the entrance, which looked particularly conspicuous in the dead of night.
Business is this good?
Uta's curiosity was piqued. She loved exploring these kinds of hidden, down-to-earth delicacies tucked away in street corners. She glanced at the line, pulled down the brim of her hat, and walked over without hesitation to join the end of the queue.
The wait was a bit long, but listening to the people in front excitedly discussing "fatty tuna belly" and "legendary tamagoyaki" in various languages, she actually found it quite interesting.
This felt much more real than listening to her manager report on what record her album had broken again.
About twenty minutes later, it was finally her turn.
"Welcome!"
With a clear greeting, Uta pushed the door open and entered. The space inside was small, with only an L-shaped counter, which was filled with customers.
The warm lighting, the lively chatter, and the aroma of food rushing to meet her instantly dispelled the chill of the late night.
She found an empty seat and sat down. Just as she was about to take off her sunglasses, her movements suddenly froze.
Her gaze crossed the counter and landed on the young clerk who was busy working.
He had striking brownish-red short hair, delicate features, and a focused expression. He was using smooth, almost artistic movements to quickly shape a piece of sushi, then precisely placing it on the plate in front of the customer.
A very ordinary, very daily scene.
But in Uta's field of vision, hovering above the head of that red-haired clerk was a symbol she was all too familiar with—a scale emblem emitting a soft white light, representing the neutral faction.
Exactly like hers.
This sushi shop clerk was actually also a player?
Almost at the same moment Uta noticed him, the red-haired young man also seemed to sense something. He had just finished his work and habitually looked up, his gaze sweeping over the newly arrived customer.
When his line of sight fell on Uta, a flicker of imperceptible fluctuation flashed in his amber eyes.
He saw it.
He saw the white scale, belonging to the neutral faction, also hovering above the head of the girl wearing a hat and sunglasses.
Shirou Emiya's hand, which was wiping the kitchen knife, paused for a tenth of a second.
Their eyes met.
One was a World diva who had just finished a concert for tens of thousands and sneaked out to find a moment of peace.
The other was an ordinary clerk who had finished his day's work and was preparing food for late-night diners.
Two players from different Worlds, belonging to the same faction, met just like that, without any warning, in a late-night sushi shop at a street corner in New York.
The surrounding noise seemed to have been pressed on mute at this moment.
Uta's heart skipped a beat.
The hustle and bustle inside and outside the bar, the chatter of customers, and the clinking of pots and pans all faded into blurred background noise in this instant.
Shirou Emiya's hand, wiping the sashimi knife, stopped in mid-air, the blade reflecting the blurred silhouette of the girl opposite him, as well as that clearly visible scale emblem emitting a soft white light above her head.
Neutral faction.
Just like him.
His heart felt like it was gripped by an invisible hand, then suddenly released.
It had been a month. Ever since he and Rin Tohsaka were studying gem magecraft in the Clock Tower library, and the next second were swept into this bizarre World by an irresistible force, this was the first time he had sensed the existence of "his own kind."
That was a month ago, on a gloomy afternoon in London. One second, he was still in the Clock Tower, nursing a headache over the incredibly complex magecraft theory of his girlfriend—Rin Tohsaka—complaining about why it couldn't be as intuitive as reinforcement magecraft; the next second, a blinding white light swallowed everything, and when he opened his eyes again, he was standing alone in the middle of New York's Times Square.
With the heavy traffic and the giant electronic billboards playing clips of superheroes he completely didn't recognize—like Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and so on.
Rin was gone, and the vague magical connection between him and Saber had also been completely severed.
He had been thrown into a brand new, unfamiliar World.
The first few days were filled with panic and searching. He wandered the streets of New York like a headless fly, trying to find any trace of magecraft, looking for any signal Rin might have left behind.
Everything here followed the laws of physics; the air was so clean there wasn't a trace of magical flow.
But he could indeed use the magic from his original World, a discovery that made Shirou heave a sigh of relief.
He tried to contact the Clock Tower again, only to find that he didn't even know how to make a cross-World phone call.
He had become an "undocumented person" in this World. No identity, no money, not even a change of clothes.
With no other choice, he had to accept reality. Survival was the prerequisite for all choices.
Fortunately, his household skills, honed by Saber, Rin, and Fuji-nee, especially his cooking, became his only reliance in this World.