[h3][img]http://i.imgur.com/52Kspeh.png?1[/img] [color=0072bc]Izumi Airi — Eastern Field[/color][/h3]
[@Moonlit Sonata]
[@Berserk Gene]

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[center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX2DJIkOQv0][img]http://i.imgur.com/KdzywDR.png[/img][/url][/center]

[i][color=bc8dbf]"Boss, you've got ten seconds to start making some goddamn sense."[/color]

Airi sighed heavily, the weight of recent events finally weighing down on her after so much time spent running dauntlessly ahead. She considered it something of a secret to moving forward — don't look too hard at the blurs. After all, you'll pass them soon enough, or you'll die.

But when the time came to stop and rest, she [i]had[/i] to look. She had to confront the track she was running on, and the vision stabbed at her eyes.

[color=0072bc]"Okay, okay, Hana, look—."[/color]

[color=bc8dbf]"Nine."[/color]

[color=0072bc]"Kajin! Just listen, you fucking dickbag!"[/color]

...Had Berserker overheard that outburst? They were supposed to be headed to the thrift store soon...

[color=0072bc]"Look, it's...shit's not going down right over here."[/color] A ragged breath escaped her oft-stony demeanor, as she placed a single hand over the other side of her head, physically pushing against the headache that was rapidly forming. [color=0072bc]"You know the way Yuko explained this whole thing, right? It's not like that at all. There's a lot more people in the running than there are supposed to be, and there's this 'Ruler' person that she didn't say anything about..."[/color]

Hana was quiet on the other end of the line, but she could hear him seething. Long-distance conversations with him were always difficult. They were both very physical people - without that crucial means of communication, both of them were prone to finding themselves unable to express their feelings.

[color=0072bc]"And there's this guy. No one knows who he is, but...he's not part of the War, and he's just, he's fucking with everything. Fucking everything up. So, like I said, it's on hold for a b—"[/color]

[color=bc8dbf]"You know what's [i]not[/i] on hold!? [i]The fucking zombies!![/i]"[/color] The phone screeched into her ear, almost cutting into static as Hana's voice rose above any normal parameter. [color=bc8dbf]"Airi, [i]you[/i] fucking listen. Yuko's been telling me about those religious wackos. The church people, or, or the church itself, or whatever. [i]They're motherfuckin' cold blooded.[/i] If they catch wind of what's going on over here, they'll kill everyone. They'll make everyone forget that this place was even a part of Tokyo. It'll be like we never fucking existed, man! And once they get a whiff of the vampire pie on the windowsill, it's [i]game over[/i], for us [i]and[/i] your sister!!"[/color]

She couldn't remember the last time she had heard Hana so afraid, so visceral. She couldn't say that she knew much about the nebulous organizations that seemed to oversee so many things, but the threat looming over her hometown wasn't something that could just be brushed aside.

[color=bc8dbf]"We're trying to put a cap on the fuckin' Night of the Living Dead shit over here, but we're only human. It's slowed down a lot, since the curfew and all, but...it's not like the disappearances here have stopped."[/color] She recognized his tone. He had exhausted himself in his own anger. [color=bc8dbf]"The clock's ticking, Airi. [i]And we don't even know how much time is left on it.[/i]"[/color]

Her back slid down against the wall, seating her on the cold ground. The girl's head rested on her knees, as she closed her eyes, tugged in too many directions at once, burdened with too much at once. Don't falter, don't break. It's not what Asuka would do. She would have been able to handle this, somehow, someway. What would she do? What would a strong person do?

Each day the holy grail remained unformed, remained in Fuyuki, remained out of her hands...back in Tokyo, that strange plague would continue to spread, person by person. With someone precious to her at the center of it all — someone precious only to her. Someone whom any other actor wouldn't hesitate to eliminate, in order to quell the cancerous growth.

For each day that she pursued another goal, lives were lost and thrown away, for the sake of her love, her beloved and twisted justice.

[color=0072bc]"...Listen, Kajin."[/color] Airi's voice failed to return the boy's ardor, lethargic and weak. [color=0072bc]"There's...another reason I want to bring Asuka back. More than just because she's my sister. There's...something that I have to do."[/color] With her eyes closed, and her hand over her ear blocking out everything else, the phone was her world. The rocky ground was hard and uncomfortable, the wind chewed at the holes in her ragged clothing, but none of it moved her. None of it reached her. [color=0072bc]"I have to...apologize. For the life I lived. For the second chance that she gave me, the one that I...threw away, like a goddamn idiot."[/color]

[color=0072bc]"That's why, [i]I have to do this right.[/i] That's why...I mean...if I really did go through this by turning a blind eye to everything, by letting it all go downhill, and sacrificing everyone else to stay on top of the mudslide...what would she tell me, if I brought her back that way?"[/color] The girl asked, not to the phone, but simply to herself, a question that she already had the answer for. [color=0072bc]"I can almost hear it in her voice. 'You should have just staked me'."[/color]

[color=bc8dbf]"...Does that even actually work?"[/color]

[color=0072bc]"Who knows?"[/color]

For a while, it was only breathing between the two of them. But as weak as her voice was, the girl's stance was firm. There was no rushing this. Her method was bound by a foundation, and to undercut that foundation was to destroy the value of the method.

That was why she had to chase this. That was why she couldn't ignore the Black-Haired Man, or the fact that the landscape of the ritual was so drastically altered. That was why she had to get to the bottom of everything.

...So that, when Airi faced her sister again, she could greet her with a smile.

[color=bc8dbf]"Ugh..."[/color] Hana sighed into the receiver, blowing more static into his close friend's ear. [color=bc8dbf]"You've always been like that, you know?"[/color] As he pointed it out, Airi could almost hear the reluctant grin in his voice. [color=bc8dbf]"Looking back, I think that's why I joined up with you, after all..."[/color]

The girl's body leaned back, opening its eyes once more. [color=bc8dbf]"Alright, boss. We'll do things your way, like usual."[/color] He relented, [color=bc8dbf]"Yuko and I will keep things under wraps here as much as we can. Leave Tokyo to us. You...you do this right. Once the gang is back together, I'll punch you in the face for all the trouble you're putting us through. But for now...you do this right."[/color][/i]

 
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[center][color=0072bc][i]Idiot. It's not like I know any other way to begin with.[/i][/color][/center]
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[center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEzemAj6q8][img]http://i.imgur.com/KdzywDR.png[/img][/url][/center]

A short girl who would be unassuming in any other context. But here, despite her statue, physical and societal, that girl held her head high. A faux master, perhaps. A temporary contender, perhaps. But her fists, and her resolve, were neither fake nor transient.

A short girl who wasn't afraid to stand up in a room of saints, kings, and magi, and shout what she believed in at the top of her lungs.

The clock is always ticking. Life's too short to save your words.

Her dark hair was unkempt as always, giving the appearance that it had, at one point, been tied into a neat pair of twintails, which had since frayed and nearly come apart. Her overtop, the same white hoodie that she had kept for years, was worn and scuffed, and her faded jeans were no different, with a threadbare gash at the right knee that only grew larger with each passing day. Even the pair of relatively solid-looking running shoes around her feet looked like they had been sanded down at the soles by concrete and asphalt, and many, many nighttime walks.

She was the very opposite of royalty, a walking antithesis to sovereignty in every aspect of her gait and appearance. A person who had inherited nothing. A person who could never be a called 'magus'.

And yet, here she was.

[color=0072bc]"'My discretion', come the fuck on."[/color] She jeered at her own Servant, stretching the pockets at the front of her hoodie as she rested her hands there, casting a pair of bright blue eyes across the field. [color=0072bc]"I'd be here even if I wasn't invited."[/color]

In a way, she wasn't invited at all. Invited by the Grail itself, maybe, in some twist of circumstance. Fourteen was a tough number to reach, it seemed. By Ruler, maybe, only by virtue of that indefensible right that an impartial overseer wasn't within their power to deny. But in the end, that was all. A singular entity, the bare minimum level of acceptance required for entry. A complete nobody, shoving their way to the front of the line, because somehow, at some time, they had found a golden ticket on the ground and happened to pick it up.

Izumi Airi was perfectly fine with that.

The way she held herself was overtly aggressive. Hands balled into fists as they rested in that tattered hoodie, chin up, back straight, and a mean look on her face, nose crumpled as though someone had just shoved a fistful of garlic in front of it. When she spoke, her voice was steady, loud, and held nothing back.

In the back alleys, on the darkened and deserted sidewalks, that kind of look had kept her out of trouble, and that brutal honesty had made her irreplaceable friends. What it would all accomplish here and now was anyone's guess.

But there was one thing that no one could doubt, from the very first glance. Whatever it did accomplish, [i]everyone[/i] would see.

[color=0072bc]"Sunglasses called everyone here, right? Or all the Servants, at least."[/color] Airi mentioned, to Berserker, completely failing to keep to any kind of indoor voice. She had already given him all kinds of shit about his outfit on the way there, but the guy was just being himself at the end of the day. It would almost be respectable if it weren't for the crocs. [color=0072bc]"Jeez, does he [i]know[/i] that you can give people a kick in the ass without [i]making them kill themselves?[/i] Like, seriously, you'd think he's never heard of a fucking time-out."[/color]

It would be the first, and maybe the only time that each and every contender was gathered to one place. It meant a lot of first impressions. A procession of people who wanted the same thing as her in the end, who would look at her, judge her, and decide for themselves who she was or wasn't. And the girl would do the same in turn, without apology.

And then, everyone would move forward. Just like her, everyone would run wildly forward, without looking at the blurs. After all, if they didn't, they would be left behind.

 
In contrast to the pervasive and shadowy mysteries surrounding the city, the one that preoccupied the girl's mind at this moment was quite the simple one.

What does 'forward' mean to them?