tvk | (no subject)

[Action]

[As the Dark Hour came to an end, so did the horde of Shadows that had gathered in the street. In the middle of the horde was a beautiful woman with ankle-length hair, clutching a pair of nail-like daggers with chains hooked onto their ends.

In Rider's mind, though the threat was gone, there was still more than enough reason to keep her guard up. This was a place unfamiliar to her. She doesn't know what causes those monsters to appear. Her status as a Servant is gone, and she can tell from her strength and speed. Breaker Gorgon is gone, yet she seems unable to petrify anything with her gaze. But most importantly, she doesn't know where Sakura is.

Looking around, Rider notices a cell phone on the ground. No one in her family uses one, but she's seen other people around Fuyuki use it. How difficult can it be?]

[Audio]

If anyone can hear this, I have three questions I require answers to. First, I wish to know where I am. Second, I want to know what those...creatures were that I just fended off.

And third, I am looking for a girl with waist-length purple hair and a red ribbon, and want to know if anybody has seen her.

That is all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Apparently they have indeed. No use denying it further.]

Can you describe these creatures?

They vary in side and shape. Always inhuman, and always bent on attacking and destroying us. Those that appear at the full moon are huge and too powerful for us to take on alone - it requires all of us to defeat them.

Then I just fought a group of them.

When is the next full moon?

Let me think - a little more than three weeks.

[Three weeks...Rider hoped to be home by then.]

And how do you prepare for these nights?

[No harm in asking, though.]

Training. Forming a battle plan, and smaller teams that can work together effectively.

Are these fights that predictable?

No, but we can't do much more than that to prepare.

[Rider has to wonder about that. Surely there's a better way to defend oneself. Perhaps a preemptive strike?]

Where do the Shadows come from?

After a few months, we still don't know.

Then perhaps you should determine their source.

We've been trying. We'll keep trying.

Your drive is commendable. I suppose I should have expected nothing less from a friend of Shirou's.

Thank you. ...But, um. Have we met before?

We have never been formally introduced, but I have seen you in town. You live in the Ryudou Temple, correct?

Yes, I do. My father is the temple head.

[A nod.]

The girl I referred to before is Sakura Matou. She is my charge.

I see. I thought she matched your description, but she certainly wouldn't be the only one in the world to have that appearance.

She isn't here. Emiya Shirou is, however, as well as a few others from Fuyuki.

[So Shirou is here, too... That would mean that Rin is the only person home with Sakura, and she'd be returning to London in a month.]

Who else from Fuyuki is here?

Well... Will it seem strange to say 'Emiya Kiritsugu'?

[What.]

But he died several years ago...

I know. Those who are brought here aren't always from the same point in time.

[Is that even possible, even with the Second Magic? Rider doesn't know, so she can't rule it out.]

And they do this without disrupting events to come?

[Unless this was one of those disappearances that Kiritsugu took.]