The wind off the Mion River was sharp enough to cut, carrying the smell of snow and the faint tang of salt from the bay. Shirou moved through the backstreets of Miyama with his hood up, hands in his coat pockets, eyes scanning every shadow. The city felt different now — not peaceful, but tense, like a bowstring drawn too far. Patrols prowled the main roads, drones hummed overhead, and every alley felt like it might hold a pair of watching eyes.
He'd been mapping the JSDF's new security net for days, testing its seams. Tonight was supposed to be another pass through the eastern sector, nothing more. But then he felt it — a ripple in the air, faint but unmistakable to a magus. Mana, raw and unstable, bleeding into the winter night.
He stopped dead.
That signature… it wasn't just any Servant's. He knew it. He'd seen it in Fate/stay night, fought alongside it in FGO, read every scrap of her story in the VN. Caster. Medea. The Witch of Colchis. And if his memory of the timeline was right, she shouldn't be here yet — not like this.
Which meant something had already gone off‑script.
Shirou slipped into the nearest alley, boots crunching on frost‑rimmed asphalt. The mana trail was easy to follow — a faint shimmer in the air, like heat haze in the cold. It led him through a warren of narrow lanes until he found her.
She was slumped against the wall of a shuttered teahouse, half in shadow, half in the sickly yellow glow of a streetlamp. Her robes — once rich purple and gold — were torn and stained dark with blood. A hood had fallen back to reveal a cascade of violet hair, matted and tangled. Her breathing was shallow, each exhale a faint mist in the cold.
Her eyes flicked up as he approached. Even dulled by pain, they were sharp, calculating. "You're… not him," she murmured, voice hoarse. Then her gaze unfocused, and she sagged sideways.
Shirou was beside her in an instant, catching her before she hit the ground. Her skin was cold, her pulse weak but steady. Up close, the mana signature was unmistakable — Servant‑class, but frayed, like a tapestry coming apart at the seams.
Her Master must have tried to kill her, he thought grimly. In the anime, Atrum hadn't tried to end her this early. If she'd already broken from her Master, then the War's opening moves were already in chaos.
He glanced around — the street was empty for now, but it wouldn't stay that way. The JSDF had sensors tuned for mana spikes, and she was bleeding power into the air like a beacon.
He shifted her weight onto his shoulder and moved, keeping to the shadows. She was light — too light — and the faint hitch in her breathing told him she didn't have long before the damage became permanent.
The safehouse was a narrow, two‑story building tucked between a laundromat and an abandoned bookstore. Inside, the air was warmer, the lights dim. Shirou laid her on the low couch in the back room, then knelt beside her.
The wound in her side was deep, the edges ragged. Not a clean cut — more like a tearing force, magical in nature. He could see the faint shimmer of her spiritual core beneath the surface, flickering like a candle in the wind.
He projected a set of surgical tools, their steel gleaming in the lamplight, and set to work. Reinforcement flowed into his hands, steadying them as he cleaned the wound, knitting flesh and spirit together with careful threads of mana. She didn't stir, but her breathing eased, the tension in her body loosening.
When he was done, he sat back, wiping sweat from his brow. The room smelled faintly of ozone and blood. He studied her face — sharp‑boned, beautiful in a way that was almost dangerous. There was something ancient in her features, something that didn't belong to this era.
He didn't need to ask who she was. He already knew.
And he knew what she could become — both the threat and the opportunity.
She woke hours later, the first light of dawn filtering through the blinds. Her eyes opened slowly, focusing on him where he sat in the chair across from the couch.
"You're awake," he said quietly.
She studied him for a long moment. "You're the Steel‑Eyed Raven."
He didn't flinch. "And you're Caster. Medea."
Her lips curved faintly. "So you do know me."
"I know your reputation," he said. "And I know you're not at full strength."
Her gaze flicked to the bandages at her side, then back to him. "You saved me. Why?"
"Because leaving you there would have been a waste," he said simply. "And because I'm not in the habit of letting people die in the street."
She laughed softly, though it turned into a wince. "Not what I expected from the man who leveled a mansion."
He didn't answer. Instead, he poured a cup of tea from the pot on the table and handed it to her. She took it, her fingers brushing his briefly.
"I had a Master," she said after a moment. "Ambitious. Greedy. He thought he could bind me completely, use me as a tool. When I refused, he tried to kill me. I… objected."
Shirou nodded. "And now you're free."
"For the moment," she said. "But a Servant without a Master doesn't last long."
He leaned back in his chair. "Then maybe we can help each other."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You're offering to be my Master?"
"I'm offering you a pact," he said. "I can supply the mana you need. In return, you help me prepare for what's coming."
She tilted her head. "And what is coming?"
"The Fifth Holy Grail War," he said. "In two months."
Something flickered in her eyes — recognition, perhaps, or calculation. Then she smiled, slow and knowing. "You're planning to fight."
"I'm planning to win," he said.
She sipped her tea, watching him over the rim of the cup. "Very well, Raven. You have a deal."
The days that followed settled into a rhythm. Medea recovered quickly under his care, her strength returning as his mana flowed into her. She was a quiet presence in the safehouse, moving with the grace of someone who had lived in palaces and courts, but her eyes missed nothing.
They spoke often, trading knowledge. She taught him subtler forms of magecraft — wards that could bend light, illusions that could hide a man in plain sight. He showed her the city's new security net, the patrol patterns, the blind spots he'd mapped.
And all the while, Shirou's mind kept circling back to the timelines he knew. In the VN, Medea's path had been one of manipulation and betrayal, ending in tragedy. In FGO, she'd been an ally, a teacher, even a friend. Here, in this fractured version of events, he had a chance to change her story — and maybe his own.
One evening, as they worked together to reinforce the safehouse's bounded field, she glanced at him. "You hide behind that armor, that name. The Steel‑Eyed Raven. But that's not all you are."
He didn't look up from the sigil he was etching. "It's what I need to be."
"It's what you think you need to be," she said. "But there's more to you than fear and intimidation."
He met her gaze then, and for a moment, the room felt smaller, the air thicker. "Maybe," he said. "But in this city, heroes don't last long."
She smiled faintly. "Then perhaps it's time to change the city."
On the last night of December, they stood together on the roof of the safehouse, watching fireworks bloom over the river. The cold bit at their faces, but neither moved.
"Two months," Medea said softly. "Until the War."
Shirou nodded. "Two months to get ready."
She glanced at him, her eyes catching the light. "And two months to decide what kind of man you want to be."
He didn't answer. But as the fireworks lit the sky, he found himself thinking less about the Raven, and more about the man beneath the armor.