Fate/Heaven's Fall

Golden Dust

"Archer"

I stare at him with wide eyes as the silence spreads around us like a quiet breeze, despite being surrounded by the library's high shelves. Archer - as he called himself - stands and looks at me with his ruby red eyes as he awaits my reaction, my answer.

"Archer?" I ask gently, trying to discreetly brush my dark blue school uniform clean of all the dirt and grime that has formed on it after the turmoil I've been through. "I have no intention of giving you my real name any time soon—if at all, mortal," he says, turning his gaze away from me, "Tch, to think I've ended up here with someone like you."

"I... I still don't understand what's going on..." I mumble lowly, finding myself biting my lower lip in nervousness, "All this..." "It doesn't matter to me, I'm going to win this war, with or without your so-called help," he explains, crossing his arms, "Even if this means I have to keep you alive, huh..."

The last words that come out of his mouth I barely hear like a low murmur.

He doesn't seem content to depend on my well-being. "You need my mana, don't you?" I ask, frowning, "You said earlier that I had strong enough mana to keep you in your human form... Was that what you meant?"

I honestly have no idea what I'm letting out of my mouth, but I then slowly try to force the pieces to fall into place.

"Tch! If you want to be elucidated about the situation you have so pitifully ended up in, then I would advise you to find the observer of this Holy Grail War, as I have no intention of explaining to myself, my subjects should do that for me," Archer says, before slowly turning into golden dust again. "I'll find you again as soon as you're a little more competent,."

As he disappears in an elegant, beautiful little cloud of golden dust, only to leave me alone. He was gone as quickly as he had come.

"But... Wait! Archer!", I say immediately, followed by a low growl, "Who is the observer...?" I let a small sigh leave my lips as I realize that I have the greatest disadvantage in this so-called war; I have no idea what it is.

However, it takes a few seconds before I realize that Archer has actually left me alone. Then I decide to collect my books and leave the library immediately before I would be caught "in the act" near its beheaded, hooded man, whom I still avoid looking at.

"The Holy Grail War," I mumble to myself as I leave the empty building and leave it behind me, displacing the images of the beheaded man still inside. "The Holy Grail - maybe that can lead me on my way to the observer he mentioned?" The Holy Grail is the one that Jesus drank from at His Last Supper before he was betrayed.

Maybe the church knows something? I look at my wristwatch and realize that Kekirie, my good friend, will be with me in less than fifteen minutes, besides, the church is probably closed and locked off for today as it approaches nine o'clock. I frown slightly, but then just continue homeward and decide that I must go to church as the first thing tomorrow, even if I may not find anyone who knows anything about this war.

"Archer," I say low to myself as I turn my gaze to the dark, starry sky, where thousands of stars twinkle down at me, one bigger, and brighter than the other, "Who are you, exactly?" He won't tell me his true name, and it excites me so badly! I just have to know who he is, what he is, so-called name stuck in my head.

I don't know yet if it's all reality, or just some kind of sick dream that I'll happily wake up from at any moment. He is, without a doubt, a tyrant. Merciless, relentless and cold-blooded. He cannot possibly be mortal - no mortal would be so unbelievably beautiful, no mortal would make the very rays of the sun fade by his side, and no mortal would be able to silence me like that, just with his pure existence.