*Huh? I am pretty sure I went to sleep in my room, so where exactly am I right now?*

I remember going to sleep in my room, but I have no recollection in my memories of the place I am in right now. If I had to guess what the place was, then I would say this is a church, it can be debatable but I would still lean towards the side that says it’s more of a chapel than anything else. There’s an altar in the middle, and benches on both left and right of it, plus the cross is even more evidence. I tried to move but couldn’t, I looked down to realized that I was sitting in one of those benches and not only that but that I was completely surrounded by darkness, it looks as if I am a shadow myself.

I tried to speak but nothing came out, and right after confirming if I had any control over my body, I learn that I can only move from the neck and above. I started looking around only to see more shadows sitting in the church just like I was, at first, I thought it was one of my usual nightmares but I don’t remember ever having one like this. There were around 25 to 30 other shadows besides me, but that was it. There was nothing else besides “us” in this church, however that didn’t last long either.

*what is that*

Right in the middle of the church, a dark mist started to emerge from within the floor but this one was different from me and the others. This shadow could move, and its shape was more humanoid than “us”, after taking the form of an adult man’s silhouette it started moving towards the front part of the church.

“Welcome, my dear participants. I know most of you have no idea what is happening, in fact, I am sure none of you have experience this kind of situation before, but I couldn’t be any happier to announce all of you as the participants selected to take part of the 5th holy grail war”

The shadow looked towards it’s right and started addressing one of the sitting shadows.

“Yes, precisely that same holy grail war, you will all summon your trusted servants and fight, fight, and fight until only one of you 27 is left”

There was no sound coming from the shadow sitting down, but the dark silhouette answer as if he could read the thought of the shadows sitting down. He then looked towards another shadow and started another one man, or shadow in this case, dialogue.

“That is true, most of you already know of the grail war, which also means that you know that only seven servant and seven masters are supposed to participate in this event, however, as the representative of the grail itself, I will provide you all with the answer to these questions”

Representative of the grail, what does he mean by that? I though the grail was an object and not a living thing with reason and a will to make any decisions. Before I was able to question the shadow on that, he started answering my other confusions.

“First of all, know that because of some special circumstances, the grail was able to reduce the cycle of the war from 60, to a meager 10 years. Another change most of you are suspicious about is the number of servants and master participating in this war. Well, unlike the others before this, the servants summoned in this instance will be considered to be incomplete, meaning that they will be weaker than what they would have been in the case of a normal summoning. But do not fear, their stats will just decrease a rank or two, however you will be able to return them to normal strength with various methods.

The simplest yet at the same time the most complicated one being defeating another servant and absorbing them before they disappear completely. There are other methods to make your servants regain their past strengths, but I will leave those methods to your imagination, that will make it more interesting for both you and me.”

Hoh? Well this is quite the change, although I only know the overall structure and not the details of the grail war, having 27 servants battle each other it’s going to troublesome. Or … more like fun, if the number of servants increase then that means the number of battles, I can be a part of can also increase. But this “thing” being the representative of the grail doesn’t sound convincing.

“After only one servant remains, the grail will grant the winner any wish they desire, anything from money, love, beauty, power, anything !!! now my dear participant, go , summon your trusted servants and have your deepest desire granted by the Grail.”

The shadow’s voice kept getting more excited as he explained the war to the participants, and with those final words, my vision fell into darkness and I re-opened my eyes again to see the familiar ceiling from my room.

“The grail war, the first step I will take towards the start of my adventure. I wonder what kind of wish I should make when I win, for my purpose, the best thing I could wish for is power, but… What if …. What if there is a chance that I could wish them back. No, the only reason they appeared before me in this life was because they placed a piece of their souls in the bracelet, their actual souls were completely destroyed by those SONS OF B-” I was getting angry.

*Breathe in* *Breathe out*

“Calm down, you killed them already, there is no target for this anger anymore so just let it be” with those words I kept breathing until I was calm again.

I realized that there was a red marking on the back of my left hand.

“Command Seals” was the first thing that came to mind when I first saw it.

“From the fragments I could gather within Kiritsugu’s memories, this should be what allow you to order your servant to do anything you want them to do.” Better keep these hidden and make sure not to waste them, who knows, I might summon some madman that will make me use them just to keep him in check.”

*Sigh*

“Too much happening and it’s not even 6 in the morning”

Like that I stood up and went back to my daily routine as if nothing has change.

-Interlude-

It is early in the morning; the sun is rising and the morning wing still carries the cold of the night with it. On top of the roof of a high and quiet building, a female figure appeared out of nowhere as if with a magic trick, It was a blonde girl, by the standard of the people she is definitely consider to be “beautiful”, her body was covered with a blue cloth and on top of that was a silver armor which showed her readiness for battle, not only that, but in her hands there was something. There was a white flag with a golden symbol on it.

“If I was summoned within the ruler class then something bad must have happened with the grail war. But this, I am … how do I word it … incomplete? If I am the only servant whose strength was reduce then my job just became 2 to 3 times more difficult than what it normally would have been. This place is? Ja- Japan, east of France, I am pretty far from my homeland. Alright! No time for useless thoughts, I have to move and bear witness to the grail war in order to make sure it runs smoothly. In the name of Ruler – Jeanne D’arc I will do everything within my power to ensure that the Holy Grail War will begin and end as it’s supposed to.”

After saying those words, the girl’s voice disappeared into the void just as she did, leaving no prove that there was someone standing there just a second ago. It truly was like a magic trick.

-Interlude end-

“So, I went ahead and kept my life going as normal, but I have to summon my servant if I want to stay alive enough time for me to fight in the war. Now to the main problem, I have no F-ing clue how to summon a servant, if I knew this was going to happen I would have read more of Kiritsugu’s memories even if it meant blowing my cover. Well, worrying about it won’t help me in any way so let’s just go home”

It’s weird, it’s being two days since the war started but I am still living normally, I was expecting things to be more exciting, maybe one or two servants coming to kill me from the start, I wonder what it would be like to fight one.

This thoughts kept going around and around within my mind while I walked towards my house, but then I saw something that froze everything, at the other side of the road was a little girl, pale skin and snow white hair. The blood red color of her eyes was too contrasting from the other colors so they were causing me to be drawn in without noticing.

I was going to take a step towards her but stopped and focused on reading her lips which were moving in an exaggerated way in order for me not to make any mistake with what she was trying to tell me. After she was done, a police car passed by and the next moment she wasn’t there anymore.

“That… that was Illya right? I didn’t expect to meet her so soon, and by what she said I can expect her to be a master too.

“If you don’t hurry up and summon your servant, then you are going to die, Onii-Chan.”

This confirmed it, the grail war started already and I am most likely than not the only one who hasn’t summoned his servant yet. I got to think, I need to find a way to summon my servant, if not I will have to fight in this war by myself, I mean, how strong can these servants really be, I didn’t get to see it from Kiritsugu but if they were human then that means they can’t be that strong.

Thoughts like this kept hunting me until I reach the house. I entered the house but was to deep into my mind to notice it, I went in and found Sakura and Taiga at the dinner table.

“Oh Shirou, welcome home” said Taiga with a grin on her face.

“Senpai, you’re back from work, welcome home.” Said Sakura with a warm smile on her face.

“Yeah I’m home” I said while still thinking about the same things from before. I greet back and give a light kiss to Sakura then went to my room to get change.

“27 servants and masters, one wish granting grail, no way to summon my servant, things are not going the way I was expecting them to go, I mean, I was not exactly expecting to meet Illya on my way home. At least she didn’t surprise me by waiting for me at home or that would have been a little troublesome with Sakura and Taiga being here.”

That’s when it hit me, I was done taking my shirt off when my mind finally managed to catch up to my body. I walked home, met Illya, arrive home, greeted Taiga like normal and then greeted Sakura with … a … kiss.

“Oh shit!” I finally realized what I did. After that you could hear the sound of crashing when I ran through the hallway towards the living room where a Taiga with her chin almost touching the floor and a Sakura that was 3 times redder than Illya’s eyes.

“eh, well, what can I say, it was bound to happen at some point right? haha”

I don’t know if it came out as some kind of signal but right when I finished Sakura tilted sideways and collapsed in the floor. Looks like that was not the best excuse I could have made up.