001 - What Makes it Hard to Go Home ?

After that, the two of them left Shirou and Saber at the Emiya residence with the still-unconscious Bazett.

They both returned to the mansion so Rin could rest. After all, she still had to go to school in the morning.

Meanwhile, Rei still needed to control his Astral instincts. Normally, he would manage it by letting his instincts surface, but that was a bad idea at the moment.

So he decided to suppress it, at least until he finished what he needed to do in this world.

"Are you okay, Rei?" Rin suddenly asked when she saw Rei walking toward the basement.

Rei stopped and turned to her. "What do you mean?"

"You know... your eyes keep changing color from blue to purple since you came back to the church..." Rin hesitated as she spoke.

"...It's just something I need to deal with. If you're still curious, I'll tell you and Sakura about what happened when I fought Gilgamesh." He walked away without waiting for Rin's response.

After Rei left, he headed to the basement where Rin and Sakura had summoned him before. He sat in the middle of the summoning circle.

He took a deep breath, concentrating intensely while setting up a barrier around himself to prevent his energy from being sensed by others.

"Atheism," he whispered, and a colorful barrier began to form around Rei, separating his space from the outside.

After he saw that his *Atheism* was working, he proceeded to the next step.

"Seven Trumpet," he whispered, and immediately his entire body was enveloped in a blue flame-like aura. His hair, too, was covered by the same aura, changing its color to blue.

The form he used when he was in the Dimensional Gap with Ophis and Grisella.

The form he used to erase the entire ExE universe.

His true form...

A few hours later…

"Why didn't you two wake me up last night?" Sakura pouted when she heard her sister's story about what happened the night before.

"What do you mean, Sakura!? The Holy Grail War is too dangerous for you! Besides, last night we were in a hurry to save Emiya before he got killed again."

Hearing the name "Emiya" made Sakura look like she was deep in thought. "Emiya? Do you mean Shirou Emiya? How could he get involved in the Holy Grail War? Isn't he just a normal person?"

"I don't know, but he somehow managed to summon Saber with his minuscule od quantity. And now he can't even provide Saber with enough mana since his magic circuits are really, really bad."

"I didn't expect Emiya could become a Master like that... If he managed to summon Saber, it means you failed in your plan to summon Saber, onee-chan~," Sakura chuckled, recalling her sister's previous plan to summon Saber.

"Yeah, well, who would've thought we'd end up summoning that silver-haired playboy instead, and I'd lose my Command Spell?"

"So where's Rei? Since I woke up, I haven't been able to find him." Sakura asked, glancing around.

They were both in the dining room after having breakfast and discussing what happened the previous night. But since then, Sakura hadn't been able to find Rei anywhere.

"He said he had something to do, so he went to the basement."

"Basement? Did something happen to him?"

"Well, from what I know, there isn't much I can tell you... Oh right, last night, his eyes kept changing from blue to purple." Rin said, recalling what happened to Rei the night before.

"Changing colors? Did something bad happen to him while he was fighting Gilgamesh?" Sakura looked worried when she heard that and wanted to find out where Rei was.

"Nothing happened to me." they suddenly heard Rei's voice.

"Rei!?" They both immediately stood up and looked toward him.

"Looks like both of you are already up. Was I in there for too long?" Rei glanced at the clock and saw that it was still 7 a.m.

"What happened last night? Onee-chan said your eyes kept changing." Sakura said as she approached him and checked his condition.

"Nothing happened to me last night, but if both of you are still curious, I'll tell you the detailed version of what happened."

~~~~~~

Just like before, the three of them were walking to school together.

"I can't believe you literally destroyed the entire town fighting Gilgamesh..." Rin said, shaking her head after hearing his story.

"Yeah... I didn't even notice anything happened last night..." Sakura added.

"Technically, nothing happened last night, and the town never got destroyed."

"That's because you reversed time! Like, what kind of ability is that, casually turning back time!? Are you some kind of True Magic user or something?!" Rin shouted at Rei, visibly annoyed.

"No, I'm not a True Magic user, but... Never mind, let's just keep going."

They continued walking until they were almost at their school.

"By the way, did you see the news? About the gas leak that killed a lot of people in some building?" Sakura suddenly asked the other two.

"Gas leak?"

"Yeah. On the news, they said they found a lot of dead people in a building and claimed it was caused by a gas leak."

Hearing that, Rei stopped walking, which made the other two stop as well. "Caster..."

Time passed until it was finally break time at Rin and Sakura's school.

"Are you sure about this?" Rin asked using telepathy, the method Rei usually used to communicate with her when they were around many people.

"Yeah, just do it already."

Hearing that, Rin could only sigh. She finally stood up from her seat and walked over to Ayaka Sajyou, who was taking out her bento.

"Sajyou?" Rin stood in front of her, causing Ayaka to stop and slowly turn to face her.

"Yes?" Ayaka replied hesitantly, slowly trying to hide the Command Spell on her hand.

Rin could easily see that she was trying to hide something, but she ignored it and asked, "There's something I want to ask, so can you follow me? It won't take long."

Ayaka looked panicked upon hearing that, knowing that Rin Tohsaka was a mage and considered the second authority in the city. Being called by another mage made her certain that something bad was going to happen.

"Nothing's going to happen, so there's no need to panic like that. Just follow me to the rooftop." Rin added, then walked away, passing by Rei.

Rin glanced at Rei as if saying, 'I already did it, so let's go to the rooftop!'

Even so, Ayaka remained seated, not moving at all. She really didn't want to get involved with the mages in this city or anything related to them. She wasn't like her sister, who's considered a prodigy. She just wanted to live her life peacefully, without getting entangled with them.

"It's fine, Master. You can follow her. She's not going to do anything to you." she suddenly heard a voice in her head. It was her Servant, Archer—a Servant she had somehow summoned despite not wanting to summon one at all after the Command Spell appeared on her hand. Archer had appeared out of nowhere without using a summoning circle and declared that she was her Master.

"Why? What if she's going to make me fight her Servant?"

"She won't. She doesn't have a Servant because she's not a Master in this war. The one you should worry about is her friend—the silver-haired man."

Hearing that made Ayaka remember what Archer had said when she first appeared before her.

"I'm here for the purpose of watching someone, Master. I don't mind if you don't want to get involved in the war, as my purpose isn't to win it but to make sure someone doesn't destroy the entire world."

Meanwhile, Rin and Rei were already on the rooftop of the school, waiting for the others to arrive.

"Why do we need to call her? Is she Caster's Master?" Rin asked Rei.

"Nope, Caster's Master is a different person."

"You mean you know who the Master is? Can't we just go to them and take them down?"

"Sure. I don't mind, but not now. There's something I want to check first."

What he wanted to check was the girl full of worms from yesterday...

He didn't know who she was or why she was full of worms, even though he had already prevented Sakura from becoming the one to suffer that fate.

"Tohsaka, Rei, what do you need from me?" They heard Shirou's voice as he arrived with Sakura.

"I brought Emiya here like you asked, Rei." Sakura said as she walked to his side.

"Good, you're here. Now we just need to wait for the other Master."

"Other Master? You mean there's another Master besides me in this school?" Shirou looked surprised when he heard there was another Master at the school.

"Yeah, there were supposed to be five, but since Rin is no longer a Master, it's only four now." Rei explained to them.

"Five!? Almost all the Masters are from this school!? What kind of coincidence is that!?" Rin was genuinely shocked when she heard that.

"Yeah, well, you're no longer a Master, so it's only four now, and we already know half of them." Rei then pointed at Shirou.

"You, Emiya Shirou, are the Master of Saber. And your teacher, Kuzuki, is the Master of Caster."

"Teacher Kuzuki!?" The three of them said simultaneously.

"Yeah. But for now, just leave him be. Don't ask him anything without some form of protection, because he's been enchanted by Caster, so he could easily kill any of you." Rei warned.

"By the way, what happened to Saber?" Rei shifted the conversation and asked Shirou.

"Saber? At first, she wanted to go around the town to look around, but I told her to wait until tomorrow, when I'm off, so I could take her around the city."

"What about the woman I saved?" Rin asked as well.

"She's still unconscious, so Saber is watching over her right now."

After that, they discussed a few more things until Ayaka appeared, causing them to turn their attention to her.