He stood there, on the hill overlooking the expanse of trees and bushes far below. His muscles twitched, the remains of an old Chinese blade falling from his grasp and fading into particles of light before even hitting the ground.

A drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his chin and drawing a thin red line.

Weakly, he wiped the blood off his mouth with his bruised hand. The one that he could still move, anyway.

He heard a gasp behind him and turned around.

There she stood, in all her glory. The girl– no, woman, that he came to call his master.

She stared at him with such a fragile and unbelieving expression, as if he would disappear the moment she looked away.

"Archer…" she called, hesitating as to whether to take a step towards him or not.

He smiled at her, fighting against fatigue and exhaustion as best he could to relive her wariness.

He could hear her sob, even as she angled her head towards the ground and hid her face behind her hands.

When was it that he last had someone cry for him? It all felt so far away.

He could feel his body disintegrating, the will of Gaia already pressuring his exhausted core into fading away. He had a few more minutes at best.

He mustered what little strength he still had and shuffled towards her. His steps were incoherent and his vision waning, but he still soldiered on until he stood right in front of her.

"Rin." He called.

She jerked her head to look up to him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears.

"Ri—"

She jumped into his chest, and he cursed under his breath at the sudden contact. This girl…

He couldn't feel her tears through his armored chest, but he felt her shake and tremble with every breath she took.

He hesitated as to what to do for a moment, before wrapping his good arm around her back and pulling her into a hug.

She stiffened for a fraction of a second, but soon relaxed into his hold. Her legs gave way beneath her but Archer was there to catch her.

He crouched, still holding the girl in his arm and letting her knees rest on the soft grass beneath.

Their embrace lasted for too short a time, and when he tried to pull away, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Rin—"

She cut him off before he could speak as she sealed his lips with her own, pulling with her arms to make it harder for him to pull away. It was futile, and they both knew it. He was still a servant, even though most of his strength had already left him. He could have broken away at any moment, but he didn't. He indulged her in their last moment of intimacy and leaned further into the embrace.

It was a simple, chaste kiss. Yet he could feel her emotions through it. The strength with which she pressed against him, the passion in the way her hands pressed against his neck. The wetness of her tears against his bruised cheeks.

They had fought through this war and survived it. Against all odds, Tohsaka Rin was the winner of the fifth Holy Grail War.

The intimacy came to a close and she pulled away, eyes still teary and avoiding his gaze.

No words were spoken, for none were needed. They had fought as Master and Servant, comrades in a Battle Royale that had bested mythical beasts and legendary heroes. They had learned each other's ways, one through observation and memories of a time long past, the other through reminiscing dreams and trust born of mutual acceptance and reliance.

Her hand brushed against his and she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. "Will I ever see you again?"

He sighed. I doubt it. "Perhaps," he said, "Make a big enough fuss and Alaya might just send me after you." He finished with a smirk.

She feebly punched his arm and pouted. "Very funny."

He stood up, his hand grasping hers as he helped her to her feet.

He took a few steps back, out of her grasp as she reached for him again.

She opened her mouth, before freezing in place as motes of light started shedding away at his back.

"Look after yourself," He said, his voice barely audible as the winds picked up and rustled the leaves. "And don't let that fool end up like me." He added, waving his hand and bidding her farewell.

She took a couple shaking steps towards him before she stopped, hands clutching at her chest and shoulders heaving.

She looked to the ground before looking up, her lips curling into a smile despite the tears trailing down her cheeks.

She nodded.

He smiled, as the last of his astral being vanished to the wind, leaving behind the saddened and broken form of his companion.

"Archer!" She called, before collapsing to the ground and sobbing into her hands.

…

…

The faintest of lights sparked within an ocean of darkness. The smallest wisp of consciousness of a being long since put to rest flaring to life.

…How long had it been? How long had he been asleep?

He opened his eyes, only to be met with a vast expanse of nothingness, rippling and swaying like currents under the seas.

He closed his eyes and focused inside. The gears in his soul, long since rusted by the eons, crumbled to dust as the vastness of his consciousness materialized far below him.

He opened his eyes again and willed himself to fall. He landed on his feet, the impact barely noticeable in a land where he was the master.

His gaze locked on an unfamiliar sight.

Where once stood a hill of broken swords and a rusty sky, was now a vastness of green blades and a sky so blue and clear.

He took a step forward, his bare foot brushing against the soft grass underneath him, and stopped.

He looked at his feet, slowly going up his legs and torso, before he brought his hands in front of his eyes. He blinked, before reaching for his head and plucking a hair from on top.

He blinked again.

Small limbs, tanned skin and gray hair. What's the meaning of this? He frowned.

He looked around again, his frown deepening.

Everything was different. Every single detail he remembered from his time before had changed. The only thing that remained was the blades thrust into the ground, anchors to his essence and proof of his being.

He reached out for the pommel of a sword, a common blade like so many others, and pulled.

The sword flew through the air and towards him. He caught it in his hand, taking comfort in the weight of the blade and its familiarity. He swung it a few times, a smile starting to form on his face before he willed it away.

He dispelled the blade and moved through his domain.

The wind blew his hair and ruffled the grass around him, and he enjoyed every bit of it. His senses felt as if they had been dormant for an eternity, and he reveled in every bit of sensation and stimuli he could perceive.

He finally reached a familiar hill, once littered with corpses and broken swords, now the picture of calm and serenity.

He took a seat at the apex, enjoying the scenic sight that stretched far beyond the horizon.

He closed his eyes and let the corners of his lips curl upwards.

He had almost fallen to sleep when something tugged at the edges of his consciousness. He opened his eyes and stood to his full height.

He scanned his surroundings, taking in every single detail and analyzing every single blade around him.

Now that he thought about it… What am I even doing here? He wondered. What woke me up? Why does Unlimited Blade Works look so different?

His frown deepened, but before he could even think about it, everything shattered around him.

The ground started to break, large ridges and holes forming, stretching from under his feet and all the way to the horizon like a web.

The sky cracked, the blue of its vastness quickly turning red, like embers sizzling on the surface of crispy clear water. Thunder clapped through the air, crashing onto the ground and coursing through the blades thrust into it.

But more than that, his body felt as if it was on fire. Like lines of molten steel rushing through his veins and filling every pore of his skin. He gasped, eyes wide and hands grasping at his sides as he fell to his knees. He couldn't scream. He couldn't cry.

Every inch of his body felt out of his control.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his circ—

A blade burst through his chest, piercing his skin and squirting blood all over the grass around him.

What in the—

A twisted dagger burst out of his leg, piercing the hand resting on it in the process and locking it in place.

He fell forward, still kneeling when his head hit the grass.

All around him, his reality marble crumbled to pieces, the clouds in the sky turning into molten lava slowly oozing onto the ground and filling the broken landscape.

More blades pierced out of his skin. A slew of dirks through his shoulder, a lance through his thigh and the tip of a jagged blade made entirely of stone cleanly poking through his back. He felt his consciousness giving way under the intensity of the pain. His reign over his own soul rapidly ebbing away.

He wanted to give in, to let the darkness take him as every piece of his body crumbled under the piercing blades and the rumbling of the ground beneath him.

But just as his consciousness started to fade, just as the ground beneath his feet started giving way—

…All of it faded into darkness.

When he first came back to his senses, he had expected to be in some remote region of the world, faced with a convoy of slavers or dealing with the armed company of a local war chief. Heck, he had even expected to have to deal with a rogue magus or perhaps even a belligerent Apostle and his army of deleterious ghouls.

He could count the number of times he strayed out of those scenarios on the fingers of a single hand. A hand lacking several fingers.

What he hadn't expected, however, was to wake up under the shade of a giant dune of sand, in the body of a child, who couldn't be older than six, completely bare to the coarseness of the sand.

It had taken him some time to wrap his mind around his current situation, and he still couldn't believe what was happening.

For one, he was in a desert. He had fought among the dunes before, so that wasn't too worrisome, but the state of his body left him completely perplexed.

He had never, ever, been summoned as a child before. Heck, even his skin tone and his hair –and probably his eyes, too— were still the same shade of his Servant self.

What had really grated on his nerves, however, was when he stood at the apex of a dune and tried to reinforce his eyesight for a better lookout.

He had found his body completely devoid of magical circuits, even when he tried the old method and went about turning one of his nerves into a circuit, he had failed.

Emiya gritted his teeth and massaged his temples, his eyes scanning the horizon for any trace of civilization.

He was out here alone, surrounded by nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. He had no supplies, no water and no clothes. He was completely bare, in more ways than one.

He sighed, reigning in his breathing as he closed his eyes. Think. What's the best thing to do in this situation? He frowned.

The sun was beating at his back and the winds were hot. He couldn't very well stay out in the sunlight for too long, but he couldn't wait until the evening either. If a day in the desert could sizzle your skin, then a night in it could very well freeze your bones.

He lifted his hand over his eyes and squinted as he looked up to the sky. First, I have to figure out where I am and what time it—

He froze, his eyes going wide as he stared at the impossibility that glared right down at him.

What in the…

Counter Guardian Emiya was flabbergasted. Completely, and utterly.

He had managed to find a piece of junk some ways out of his original spot and was using it as a makeshift protection against the sun.

So he walked, the flat chunk of metal leaving a trail behind as he tredged through the dunes.

He had no idea where he was going, nor what he should do.

The whole situation felt like a joke and he couldn't exactly tell whether it was a bad dream or not.

He could feel the hot metal through his fingers as he held the sheet of junk behind his back, but he ignored it. He had more pressing matters to think about, such as the two impossibilities glaring down at him and searing his covered back.

He still couldn't believe it.

He wheezed, stopping at the summit of a dune and placing his makeshift protection near the edge. He quickly sat himself on top before pushing with his hand and sliding all the way down to the bottom of the dune.

When he picked himself up, he couldn't help but let his eyes wander to the sky again.

There, staring down at him like a giant elephant in a tiny room, were two suns. Two globes of searing light and heat looking him right in the eyes.

He had to squint and rub at his eyes as he looked down.

He looked at his hands, then at his legs, before pinching his cheek.

The skin on his face turned red before he let go and shook his head.

"Impossible."

He didn't know how long it had been since he woke up among the dunes.

His hands and feet had gone numb and his throat was sore.

He could already feel his body giving in to exhaustion, but he soldiered on. He couldn't very well collapse in the middle of the desert. If the sun didn't roast him alive then the sand beneath him would cook him in his sleep.

He cursed under his breath. Damn this body. He had expected his shell to be similar to his old self. He was wrong. He body was that of a normal child, if a weak and malnourished one. The fact that he was bereft of magical circuits should have clued him in, but he was too tired and pressed to think straight.

He slid down another dune and arrived at the bottom of another. When he made to resume his walk, he stopped.

In the distance, not a few hundred meters away, was something protruding out of the sand. A large rock, perhaps, that would provide him with much-needed respite.

With renewed vigor, he quickened his pace and soon came to a close not far from the object he spotted.

His eyes went wide and his voice caught in his throat. He dropped the sheet of metal behind him and shuffled his feet towards the thing.

It was massive. Incomparable to anything he had ever seen before. Even taller and larger than any of the dunes he had come across.

The massive frame of steel jutting out of the sand, the three circular shaped cylinders protruding out of its back. It was something right out of a movie. A feat of engineering the likes of which would have been impossible for the humanity of his age to achieve.

Yet he could feel it was but the tip of an iceberg.

The rear of a giant stabbed right into the sand, slumbering beneath the dunes for eons upon eons.

His feet moved on their own, his mind still reeling from the marvel and awe he witnessed. He soon found himself at an arm's reach from the metallic structure.

His small body was completely dwarfed by the gigantic construct, and his hand found purchase on the surface of the metallic beast before he could stop himself.

He brushed aside the sand and pressed his forehead against the hard, coarse metal. He closed his eyes and exhaled.

For a moment, he had completely omitted his lack of circuits as he mouthed his aria and focused on his senses. His mind pictured the hypothetical hammer of a gun. He breathed in and the hammer was cocked. He breathed out and the hammer struck the primer.

He could feel something reaching out to him, tugging at the edge of his soul, but it vanished as quickly as he tried grasping for it.

He opened his eyes, a frown tugging at his brows before looking up at the back of the steel behemoth.

There was no way he could scale all the way up to the top or even find a way into the thing. Not in his current state, anyhow.

He sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He was supposed to be trying to survive, not getting into the entrails of some hulking beast of steel. Sure, he could possibly find something inside, some supplies perhaps, or even just some clothing, but given the state of the whole thing, he doubted he'd find anything inside.

He walked along the side of the structure, his hand brushing the metallic surface until he came upon a small protrusion hidden beneath a chunk of hardened sand. He pried it off with both hands and pulled at the protruding piece of metal. It took him a few tries, but, with a grunt, he managed to pull hard enough to bend the old and weathered alloy in a way that made it possible for his small body to pass through. He crouched into the small opening and legged his way through it.

It wasn't much of a passage, just a small space that opened on a web of intertwined cables and wires of differing sizes and colors. He guessed the passage served as some sort of maintenance hatch, but what did he know?

He looked up, following the series of tangled cables that disappeared further into the darkness. He wondered where the passage could possibly lead but put the thought away.

Thankfully, the opening he made seemed to be just at the right angle to allow for a small breeze to pass through occasionally.

He rested his head on the steel wall behind him and hugged his knees to his chest.

He didn't know where to go nor what to do, but if there was one thing Shirou Emiya could excel at, it was perseverance.

Author's Note:

Hello there!

Thank you very much for taking the time to read through this chapter.

I'll be honest, this whole thing was written on the spur of a rare moment of inspiration and motivation. I usually spend my time lurking through the fandoms and reading fanfictions, so it's the first time I actually post anything.

If my English reads/sounds weird or incoherent to you, that's because I'm self-taught. English is my third language, but I like to think I'm pretty fluent.

If you have any remarks/reviews, I'd be happy to read them!