Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night.

He had the walls of Uruk built, the sheepfold

Of holiest Eanna, the pure treasury.

See its wall, which is like a copper band,

Survey its battlements, which nobody else can match,

Take the threshold, which is from time immemorial,

Approach Eanna, the home of Ishtar,

Which no future king nor any man will ever match!

Go up on to the wall of Uruk and walk around!

Inspect the foundation and scrutinize the brickwork!

Testify that its bricks are baked bricks,

And that the Seven Wise Men must have laid its foundations!

One square mile is the city, one square mile is orchards,

One square mile is claypits, as well as the open ground of Ishtar's temple.

Three square miles and the open ground comprise the city of Uruk.

—The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 1

Day— -19

It was twilight, and Shirou was on his way home. He was also a little late. He had stayed behind at work to help with some deliveries, and now Taiga-nee-san would be hungry when he got home. This was a completely normal day, just like almost every other day, when something extraordinary happened. Not that he knew that at the time.

He was taking his normal short cut through the deserted park, when he saw a woman sitting on the park bench staring out into space. She was without a doubt one of the most striking and exotic women that he had ever seen. Her hair was very brightly blond, and cut in a spiky, wild looking bob. She was wearing elegant slacks and a button-down blouse, cut to her figure. A jacket was flung over the bench next to her, in defiance of the early winter chill. Despite the blankness of her gaze, her posture was a cocky sprawl that managed to scream confidence. Altogether she looked like something that had escaped from an anime, or maybe a movie. As he got closer, he saw that her eyes were a very bright red color, which only added to her strangeness.

He waved at her tentatively, worried about a woman out here after dark. She took no notice, continuing to look forward. He followed her gaze, seeing nothing but a tree, and the water beyond it.

"Um, are you okay?" he asked, concerned that something was wrong. It wouldn't be the first time, this park was not good for anyone sensitive. He was expecting her to jump, realize what she was doing and head for home, which was probably in the foreigner's district. What actually happened was somewhat different.

Her eyes slammed into focus, looking straight at him. He was utterly caught in her gaze, unable to continue speaking. He just stood there awkwardly for a long moment, while she looked at him.

"Boy." Her voice was deeper than he had expected, a clear alto utterly unlike the normal breathy schoolgirl voice. "Measure the angle of that corner." It was an absolute order. He blinked, turning towards the corner of the park she seemed to have been looking at, between the water on one side and the road on the other. He took a step towards it, before turning back to the woman.

He was glad to help anyone who asked, however rude they were. And who was she calling a boy? She's definitely younger than Taiga, about college aged. Still, he needed some sort of instruments it she wanted him to measure things…

"I don't have anything to measure it with. Do you have a protractor, or…" The woman reached behind her jacket, and pulled out a coil of rope and a couple of sticks. She tossed them to him, and he just barely caught them. The rope was knotted at regular intervals.

"Tell me how many gan there are between that corner and the road even with that tree," she pointed to the tree. "and how many there are between the corner and the fake altar." Her tone was not quite impatient. Shirou assumed that by fake altar she meant the monument, and that each knot was a gan, but didn't quite feel up to asking the rather intimidating woman.

Still, he stuck the stick with the rope at the corner of the park, and slowly backed away from it, keeping the rope barely taunt, counting the knots as they went through his hands. At the tree, he called out to the woman, "It's around 21 knots, I mean gan."

She marked something down on a sketchbook that had apparently also been hiding behind her jacket. Shirou moved back towards the stake, then along the other edge. However when he reached the area, it wasn't as clear cut as the other side. "This side is somewhere between 26 and 27 knots." The woman got up and walked over towards him, looking at the rope. She was very tall, towering at least a head over him.

She said something to herself in a strange language, jotting some marks down in her book. The marks looked like scratches. Not that he would ever tell the woman that. He looked at it as she apparently did some math. He didn't think that it was any type of kanji or hiragana. Well, the woman was obviously a foreigner, even if she didn't have an accent, so maybe that is the script of her homeland. Then she flipped back a page, and Shirou was struck breathless.

It was a sketch of a tower. It soared over a scrawl of the city, immovable and inviolate. It was a spire that would have seemed delicate, if it wasn't for the sheer solidity that it managed to evoke. "Wow," he breathed.

" Indeed. This area will be the better after my construction." She responded proudly.

"Yeah. That's just…beautiful." He couldn't help but agree.

"Of course it is. You have never seen its equal before." From a normal person that would be a question, but from this woman it was a statement. The sky is blue. You have never seen its equal.

"No." Even on paper the building was impressive, he would remember ever seeing anything like it in real life.

"Nor will you, since Uruk fell." She said affably, filling in some cross-shading.

"Uruku?" he asked carefully, mangling the pronunciation.

"My city, great and wondrous, a merest shadow of its King's glory."

He wasn't sure what that meant, and he had never heard of the city, but he could understand at least something from her words. "Is your home gone then?"

She looked at him for the second time since they had met, surprise in her eyes. "I suppose it is."

"I'm sorry." He sympathized with her.

Unfortunately, that was apparently the wrong thing to say to her. Any hint of fellowship vanished. "Never apologize. It weakens you in the eyes of your enemies, and makes those below you think that they are your equals. Especially when it is an apology for something that doesn't concern you."

That…was an interesting way to put it. But Shirou realized that he had just been very rude, bringing up what was doubtlessly a touchy subject. He bit down another apology, and said, "That tower will bring a little bit of it back though, won't it?"

"Yes it will, when everything is over and done." Something about that was little ominous, but he pressed on.

"Are you planning on starting construction soon?"

"No, not soon. Several things must occur before my tower and world may be built." She appeared to be back to normal, confident and proud. Also ambitious, if he understood about her wanting to change the world correctly.

Still, he supposed that even people as confident as this architect need funding for their projects. "Well, if you ever need anymore help, then I'm always available. I come here every couple of nights."

"No more help is required, boy." She dismissed him, picked her jacket up off the bench.

Shirou watched as the strange woman crossed the bridge. She struck an impressive figure, as if the rest of the world only mattered because she was in it. He watched her until she was out of sight, before heading home in the opposite direction.

He only got a few steps before he realized that he had forgotten to ask for her name.

"I'm home," Shirou said, taking off his shoes at the door.

"You're late!" Taiga yelled, her preternatural Shirou senses telling her that he had returned. "There was no food. What would I have done if Sakura wasn't here?"

Freeloader. Shirou swears that woman is a freeloader.

"I ran into an interesting person in the park after work," he said, taking his own share of food and sitting down next to Sakura.

"Oh?" Taiga said, despite all the food that she was cramming into her mouth.

"Yeah, she was an architect. Apparently they're thinking about building something on the site."

"At the memorial?" Sakura said doubtfully, as if she thought that the memorial park should stay the way it is. Normally he would have agreed, but that tower…

"I think it was more a conceptual thing, than a certainty. She let me look at some of her designs, and if they are half as impressive in real life as they are on paper, then the city will be lucky to have her building."

"Her?" Taiga interrupted, sounding disapproving. "Is this a dangerous woman preying on my poor Shirou?"

"It wasn't like that. She just needed some help taking some rough measurements. Besides, she's a foreigner, and probably just visiting since I don't think I've seen her before." He thinks that he would have remembered anyone half as impressive as the strange woman in the park.

"You'll probably never see her again anyway."

"Yeah." Shirou thought of red eyes, and had this vague sense of apprehension, like he had missed something really important. He ignored the feeling, deciding that it probably wasn't important. In retrospect, that was a mistake.