EMIYA SHIROU
Shirou blinked at Caster stupidly, not processing this new information. Although his body was already starting to recover, he was having trouble kicking his brain back into gear.
So, Sakura was spying on me. But who calls himself “Caster?” The only thing that moniker brought to mind was a hazy memory of a Servant back in the Heaven’s Feel ritual he had participated in over a decade ago… the same place he had met Rider.
The magus’ eyes grew wide, the memory of his intense struggle with Shinji’s Servant coming back to him. But what was Sakura doing around such a person? And this man wasn’t the same as the Caster from the grail war. He sighed, giving up on trying to make sense of things for the moment. The Nexus was a very strange place.
“I…” Shirou started to answer Caster’s question, but then realized he didn’t have an answer. He had been looking for Mia most of the day, and now she had suddenly appeared out of the ether. The archer glanced to the side, out into the ravaged earth where several buildings and streets, including a police station, had once stood. Emergency responders were already on the scene, putting out what fires remained and searching for survivors. The grail’s taint was nowhere to be seen.
He still needed to help Mia find her parents, but it was already very late, the sun having vanished beyond the horizon. Only a few sherbert rays of light remained to color the sky.
“My living quarters is no place for a child. Caster, would you know of a good place to spend the night?”
AKIHOLARME
Aki followed Crest into a strange room filled with a great many blue cabinets that were somehow attached to the walls. While the man began fiddling with one, she made to open another, but the door refused to budge.
It’s locked, she realized. Nowhere to put a lockpick in either. Damn it.
Aki tried to not make a habit of stealing most people’s belongings (dead people didn’t count), but there had been quite a few locked doors and treasure chests out Skyrim’s wilderness that she had been determined to get into, and had over the years become a reasonably competent locksmith. These locks, however, were like nothing she had ever seen. There was a black knob in the center of the door with a series of lines and numbers etched into the surface. It spun easily when twisted, but still refused her entry. She growled, frustrated.
There was a clanking sound off to the side, and the last dragonborn turned to see that Crest had managed to open the cabinet he had been playing with. “Hey, how did you do that?” she inquired, curious and somewhat impressed.
