Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

Shadow of the Wisteria Blossoms

Prologue

February 1944

The winter night lay dark and heavy over Fuyuki City. Fuel shortages caused by the Allied submarine blockade had led to main power being cut after working hours outside of military bases, hospitals, police and fire stations, government buildings, and certain factories. This left the city blacked out with the citizens huddled at home with their families, the only ones up and about being largely policemen and soldiers out on patrol.

And there certainly were more of them than might be expected, the ongoing war notwithstanding. And with good reason: throughout the past weeks, there had been numerous incidents across the city. Explosions, damaged and destroyed infrastructure with no apparent cause, even entire families or communities found slaughtered in the morning…

…to most of the Imperial Japanese Army personnel in Fuyuki, to say nothing of the common citizens and police, it was the work of Allied saboteurs and terror squads, slipped in under cover of darkness to cowardly prey on the hapless citizens and to disrupt the Japanese war effort with the destruction of vital infrastructure and resources. Assistance in dealing with them had been forthcoming nearly from the very first incidents: crack units from the Home Army, and even Waffen-SS from the German Embassy.

At least, that was what most people thought it was.

What they didn't know was that a different war was secretly being fought in the city. The goal was the same, to use the prize of that secret war to turn the tide of the greater conflict being fought across the globe, albeit against different enemies. The Germans sought the prize to be used against the Soviets, and to stop the Red Army's relentless advance towards Berlin especially in the wake of the Battle of Kursk in the previous year. The Japanese for their part, wanted to use the prize of the secret war against the Americans, the US Navy now several steps closer to the Home Islands after a bloody campaign during the previous year had wrested the Pacific Islands from the empire's grasp.

That secret war was the Third Holy Grail War, fought between seven magi as Masters, and their seven summoned Servants. The prize was the Holy Grail of Fuyuki City, a nigh-omnipotent artefact that would grant its victor virtually any wish so long as it remained within the limits of the World.

But in war, there can only be one victor, one whose wish the Grail would grant. It kept any of the Masters from cooperating for long, and driven by greed, they fought, killed, and destroyed indiscriminately with the aim of gaining the Grail and its power for solely themselves. Had the Germans and the Japanese Masters cooperated with one another until they could settle things solely between themselves at the very end, they might have won either way, but it was not to be.

And indeed, war may have also no victor, as would belatedly be discovered to be the case in this conflict. For the vessel of the Holy Grail had been destroyed early on, caught in the ruin of the German Master and their family's failed attempt to manipulate the rules of the Holy Grail War to their advantage.

All the death and destruction, the effort and resources expended in pursuit of victory, be it from foreign magi selfishly seeking power and prestige to the Japanese Master who sought to save his country from the looming shadow of the America juggernaut…it was all for nothing.

But that would only be seen with hindsight, in the near future. But now, even as the war wound down, and most of the Masters and Servants who had fought at the beginning lay dead, the survivors continued to snap and bite at each other, seeking victory for a prize they could never gain or simply to spitefully deny their enemies the prize they sought to have.

In a large mansion in the outskirts of Fuyuki, Japanese soldiers rushed down corridors clutching their weapons. Furniture, broken fencing, and sandbags were piled high against the door, while more sandbags were laid below and around windows, and barricading intersections inside the mansion.

Japanese soldiers manned these strongpoints and barricades, rifles and machine guns ready with ample ammunition at hand. Desperation marked their faces, for they were all but trapped and they knew it. But even then, if they would die, they would die as warriors ought to die, with weapons in their hands, screaming and spitting defiance against their foes instead of silently bowing their heads and succumbing.

In a large room deep within the mansion, a man with a colonel's stars silently finished polishing a sword, and sliding it back in its sheath, sealed the weapon within with red thread intricately if elegantly tied and knotted. Rising to his feet, the colonel walked to the door, and opening it stepped out into the corridor beyond.

A younger man with a captain's stars bowed where he knelt beside the door, and gasped as the colonel held the sword out. "Your Highness…" he whispered.

"The enemy will come soon." Prince Nijou said calmly. "I have no intention of fleeing like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs, nor will I cower as those walking diseases that pass for a 'clan' come. No, I accept responsibility for my failure, and in death show how true nobles fight and die."

The prince paused, closing his eyes and sighing. "Death is inevitable." He said, glancing with a sad smile at the young man who'd been his faithful adjutant first in China, then in Malaya, and finally here, in a war in the shadows of their own homeland. "There's no escaping it."

"Your Highness…please, if it is your will to die with honor on the battlefield then allow me to…"

"Will you accept and obey my final order, Makoto-kun?" Prince Nijou asked.

Captain Makoto Sanou blinked, and falling silent, bowed. "This sword cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of those walking diseases." Prince Nijou said with a note of iron in his voice. "I have no illusions that they would defile my flesh in death, but if so, then so be it!"

"Your Highness…!"

"Vengeance will come for them of that I have no doubt." Prince Nijou said, shaking his head. "I, no, my family will be avenged in time, and those diseases wiped clean from the land. But this sword, the forging of which was ordained by the Emperor Go-Toba nearly a thousand years ago, must never fall into their hands! The shame of letting those diseases defile something that once belonged to a god cannot nor will ever be expunged! And I will not allow my family to be the cause of that shame, that I allowed this sacred sword be stained by filth!"

Prince Nijou paused, and took a deep breath. "The enemy is coming." He finally said. "I know it. You must leave soon, Makoto-kun. Take the sword back to Tokyo, and present it to Prince Konoe. Tell him…tell him that all responsibility belongs to me, and that I died as befitted as one of our divine lineage."

Hands shaking, Makoto allowed the prince to drop the sword in his hands, and reverently lowered it to the ground. "I hear and obey, Prince Nijou." He said with a deep bow. "It was, and always will be an honor, Your Highness. I only wish it could have gone differently."

The prince smiled sadly. "As do I, my friend, as do I." he said. "But we did all we could, and it seemed it was not enough. All we can do now, is save what we can from the ruin of this war, and prepare for the future. Now go, go before it is too late, and all this will be for nothing!"

Makoto bowed, and sliding back, rose to his feet. Saluting, the prince returned the salute, and Makoto turned and briskly ran down the corridor away. Left alone, the prince returned to his room. A pair of candles on his desk provided light, but the prince did not sit or kneel. Instead, he stood relaxed but wary, eyes closed, breathing in measured breaths.

The minutes passed quickly. Even as Makoto ran down the streets, away from Prince Nijou's headquarters, his fellow soldiers stayed where they were, sweating and breathing heavily in fearful anticipation. And still the prince stayed in his quarters, eyes closed, standing with measured breaths.

Half an hour later, and the prince's eyes snapped open as he felt something shift. Nor was he the only one, the soldiers muttering amongst themselves as they felt the atmosphere grow heavy, thick, almost hard to breathe in.

Slight tremors shook the house every so often, causing ripples of unease to spread among the soldiers. Unnoticed, the ground outside began to displace in waving lines, as though something was moving underneath, moving slowly if steadily towards the windows.

As they came close, a soldier noticed, and giving a shout of alarm pointed his rifle at it. He tightened his finger on the trigger, but before he could fire, all hell broke loose.

Monstrous centipedes with fangs the size of a man's head and legs twice as long as a man's arm erupted from the ground, hissing and spitting venom as they hurled themselves against the soldiers. The man who first noticed went down with his head burst like a ripe melon, his killer crawling with unnatural speed over his body as it went for the other soldiers.

More of its kind followed, crawling out of the dirt in a tide of chitin and slime and over the wall into the windows. Gunfire erupted, Japanese soldiers falling back to try and open up the space between them and their attackers. But the monsters were strong, their chitinous plates enough to shrug off most of the soldiers' fire, and resistant to pain, shrugged off those bullets which punched through into their bodies except only when their miniature brains were destroyed.

The mansion shook yet again, and then pale, wormlike things erupted through the floorboards, each large enough to swallow a man. Fanged mouths opened, and belched out a tide of armored, slug-like worms with oversized heads dominated by fanged maws. The spasms of their bodies could hurl them through air at terrifying distances and accuracy, soldiers dying at their barricades or in the corridors, torn apart screaming either by the monstrous centipedes from outside or the tide of worms from beneath.

Others fought the pain, and clutching grenades to their bodies blew themselves up along with the monsters tearing them apart. They were the lucky ones. Others died slowly and painfully, and if enough of their body was intact after they died or their minds shut down in shock, the worms buried themselves into the victims' spines and with a surge of prana, forced the bodies upright and stagger them, puppet-like, forward at their master's bidding.

As explosions shook the mansion and the sound of screams echoed through the air, Prince Nijou sighed and turned around. Holding out his arms, he moved them in a circular fashion parallel and opposite to each other, paper inscribed with calligraphic script held in his fingers.

As his hands moved through the air, sheets of paper slipped from his fingers and hanging in the air, formed a circle before him. The prince narrowed his eyes as time seemed to slow to a crawl, and then the wood and paper walls collapsed under a tide of filth and the defiled dead.

Prince Nijou's eyes narrowed with hate, and quickly stretching a hand palm outward reformed the paper sheets into a wall-like formation which shot forward. As filth and paper struck each other there was a flash of blue light, and with resounding boom the front of the mansion exploded outward, blue flame dripping down and spreading as it hungrily fed on wood and paper, the flesh of the worms and their puppets turned to ash on impact.

The prince stood silent and unmoved as fire spread around him, and then narrowed his eyes again, as the flames seemed to flicker, and then some of them turned orange and went out, worms and centipedes forcing their way up from the ground and piling on top of each other melted with one another to form a…thing, that looked and acted like a man, but was ultimately nothing more than a walking disease, a plague that deserved only to be stamped out and burned.

The twisted mockery of Humanity laughed at the prince. "Impressive pyrotechnics, Your Highness." It mocked. "But petty tricks won't save you. Soon, your precious body will belong to us, one way or another."

"Impudent trash!" Prince Nijou spat, the flames around him roaring in sympathy with his anger. "Worms like you who ought to do naught but eat dirt and rot but somehow gained the ability to ape the form of men, would seek to defile one in whose veins flows the blood of the gods? Ten thousand deaths will not suffice!"

The mockery laughed, its form rippling as the worms and other monstrosities that made it up merged with more from beneath, until it was little more than a pale, bloated parody of Mankind from the waist up but below had the form of a centipede. Laughing, it slithered through the flames towards the prince, mouth baring and stretching wide in an inhuman fashion.

Roaring his rage and rejection, Prince Nijou met the creature's charge, flames erupting in his wake, and wrapping around his fists.

And in the distance, Makoto looked back to the burning mansion, and thinking of his liege and comrades, closed his eyes to fight down the tears, and the urge to turn back. "Your Highness…" he whispered. "Prince Nijou…"

Blinking away the tears, the captain turned and vanished down the street, seeking to fulfill his liege's last command, and in so doing, do what he could to honor his liege and his comrades' sacrifices.

The Present Day

"See you tomorrow!"

"Hey I know this new coffee shop down town, want to go and check it out?"

"Hey babe, you have some time tonight?"

Students milled around the quadrangle of Homurahara Academy, many heading off to club activities but others were simply leaving, either going home or out to town, be it alone, in pairs, or in groups. Laughter and chitchat mingled to form a dull, background drone, one largely muffled by the walls, windows, and height of the Student Council Chairperson's office.

A teenage girl stood behind the desk, long dark hair tied into a pair of pigtails. Bright blue eyes coolly regarded the student body milling about below, and blinking once, Rin Tohsaka turned and regarded the two students standing in front of her desk. "Alright," she said. "It's going to be tight on cash in spring, but if that's what we have to do to accommodate everyone in the spring activities, it'll have to do."

"Yes, chairwoman." The Student Council Finance Officer said with a nod, and Rin turned to the other student.

"I understand the concerns our fellow students have about the measures the faculty wants to take," she said. "But it's not like we can do nothing. In fact, those students who were involved in that little…party of theirs, should be thankful that we're only going this far, and haven't released the names of those involved, much less that video of theirs."

"Yes, but…"

Rin held up a hand, and the Public Morals Officer fell silent. "In any case," Rin said. "It's out of our hands. When all is said and done, the last say goes to the principal and the board, and the Student Council has to follow their decisions. After all, ours is only to manage student affairs and bridge the gap between the faculty and the staff."

"Yes."

"Well then…"

The two officers bowed, and turning left the chairwoman's office. The moment they left, Rin sighed, and abandoning her professional façade sank into her chair and pushing it back, placed her feet on the table. "Tired, onee-sama?" Sakura Tohsaka asked, the long haired girl leaning in with a polite smile.

"Of course I'm tired." Rin replied. "I already have so many things to do on a regular basis, and then that slut Takamiya and her posse just had to get found out, leading to a scandal we barely managed to keep under wraps, and with at least one attempted suicide from it…so far."

"Onee-sama…!"

"Yes, yes," Rin said, putting her feet down and moving forward, rapped her knuckles against the wood of her table. "I know what you're going to say. First, saying things like that is bad luck, and second, well, you wouldn't actually say this until I asked for your opinion."

Sakura carefully looked around before leaning in again. "As magi, we should be more respectful about superstitions, especially those held by many people." She reminded Rin softly. "You never know about these things."

Rin scoffed but then smiled. "True," she admitted. "And the second point?"

Sakura straightened and smiled back. "What about it?" she asked.

"What's your opinion?"

"That was a bit harsh on Mishima-sempai, wasn't it?" Sakura asked. "After all, he's the one who'll be in charge – on the student side of things – of implementing the measures to keep anything like what Takamiya-sempai and others used to do from repeating, either individually or as a group, and of course, managing complaints from other students. You have to admit, some of the measures we're being asked to implement will considerably make things more inconvenient."

"Hmm…" Rin hummed while leaning back in her chair. "True…alright, I've got it. This is what we'll do. We'll carry out the measures as set by the faculty, but at the same time we'll evaluate their effects for the next month or two. Based on what we find, we'll streamline the measures so they can do what they're meant to do, while being less inconvenient on the students and maybe, on the faculty's part as well."

"Very good, onee-sama." Sakura said, taking a clipboard from behind her and making a note. "I'll inform Mishima-sempai as soon as possible. But what about the rest of the Student Council?"

"They can be informed at the rest of the next meeting." Rin said. "Right now, having Mishima know should be enough."

"Yes."

Rin stayed silent for several more moments, and Sakura tilted her head. "Is something wrong, onee-sama?" she asked.

"Somehow," Rin began. "I get the feeling you weren't just talking about the measures being inconvenient, when you mentioned Mishima having to deal with the complaints that will come from them."

"Inconvenience will make for a convenient excuse for many of them." Sakura replied after a moment. "Not everyone in that video was a…regular, member of Takamiya-sempai's circle of friends. Some of them barely knew her in passing, if at all before that. In short, we don't really know how much of the student body was actually involved – regularly or not – in Takamiya-sempai's…'mingling', parties."

Rin nodded slowly. "Good point," she admitted. "Unfortunately, we can't really launch an investigation about that, it'd come off as a witch hunt. Especially since we only have circumstantial evidence to base it on, no matter what we might dredge up. The best we can do is keep this from going on."

"And Yanagi-san?"

Rin lowered her face to look at her desk, clasped hands pressed against her forehead. "Enjou kousai," she murmured. "Mingling parties, getting outed and attempting suicide as a result…to be honest it's hard to be sympathetic…"

"Onee-sama…!"

"I know, I know." Rin said, raising her head and shaking it. "It's very callous of me, but given how she…willingly, threw herself into the whole dirty business, it's hard not to say she was asking for it."

Sakura was silent for a few moments. "I guess you have a point there." She admitted. "Though, you shouldn't let Emiya-kun hear that. You know how he feels about the whole affair."

"He's too nice for his own good." Rin said with a laugh, and Sakura giggled.

"So you've said in the past." She said. "But, it's not bad. And it's what I like most about him."

Rin glanced at Sakura with a faint smile and narrowed eyes, Sakura responding with a cheerful and innocent smile, and finally Rin gave a small laugh. "Fair enough," she said. "Well, enough about that. Yanagi's class adviser and her parents seem to be dealing with it well enough on their own, so there's no need for us to stick our noses into it and making things more complicated than they already are."

"Yes, onee-sama."

Rin nodded, and turning back to her table sighed at all the forms and papers she needed to review, sign, and decide no. "It just never stops does it." She said exasperatedly. "I knew it would come with the job, but this is ridiculous. Oh what the heck, might as well deal with this now instead of letting it pile up."

"Yes, onee-sama."

"I don't have any further appointments today, do I?" Rin asked, and Sakura checked her clipboard.

"No, no further scheduled appointments today." She said. "Barring a walk-in appointment, of course."

"Right then," Rin said, stretching her arms before taking the top off the nearest pile. "Let's get this over with."

"You sure you don't want any help with that?"

"No, I'm fine."

Sakura pursed her lips, and then shrugged. "Then, shall we get going?" she asked. "I wouldn't want to keep mother waiting."

"No, it wouldn't do to keep Aunt Aoi waiting, that's for sure." Shirou Emiya agreed, hefting the heavy bags of groceries he and Sakura had been asked to buy along the way. Rin had gone on ahead at their insistence, leaving the two of them to shop together. "Especially when I'm invited for dinner."

"And this is where I ask the usual question, why don't you just move in with us?" Sakura asked as the two of them walked down the road away from the supermarket. "We have plenty of room, and father and mother wouldn't mind. It'd certainly be more convenient for father and you, for one thing."

Shirou laughed and shook his head. "It's improper." He said. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. Your dad and family have done so much for me already since my dad died, and when you think about it, it was dad who was obliged to Uncle Tokiomi in the first place."

Sakura sighed. "I guess so." She said. "But, at least think about it…at length. Please?"

Shirou glanced at Sakura at that, and took in her earnest expression and sighed. "Alright," he said. "I'll think it over. But can I at least do it at my own pace?"

Sakura giggled. "Of course you can, but don't take too long." She said, and Shirou laughed.

"Yes, yes."

"I'm home." Rin said, walking into the foyer and removing her shoes. Placing them on a nearby rack, she slipped on her slippers and walked into the house. She'd only taken a few steps when her mother showed up.

"Welcome home," Aoi said with a smile. "Your father's in the workshop, he wants to see you as soon as possible. Something's come up, it seems."

"Oh?" Rin asked, tilting her head but Aoi just shook her head.

"Your father hasn't shared it with me yet." She said. "He might at the dinner table, especially since Shirou-kun will be coming. But for now, I think he'll just be sharing it with you."

"I…see…" Rin said slowly. "Alright, I'll go and see him right away."

"Alright then," Aoi said with a nod as Rin walked by. "Oh, and I assume Shirou-kun and Sakura went to the supermarket together?"

"They did." Rin said over a shoulder, and at a nod from her mother resumed heading for the Tohsaka workshop. When she arrived, she found her father sitting in his wheelchair at his desk, his chin resting on an elbow, the elder magus clearly in something of a pensive mood.

"Father?" Rin asked as she stepped in, Tokiomi Tohsaka blinking at her voice and at her presence registering on the workshop's bounded fields. "Mother said you wanted to see me?"

"Oh, yes I did." Tokiomi said with a nod. "By the way, I heard Sakura and Shirou-kun are off running errands for your mother?"

"They are." Rin confirmed as she walked up to her father's desk.

"I see." Tokiomi said. "In that case, I'll just have to wait until later to show them this."

"Show them what?" Rin asked, glancing at the desk, where an opened envelope and partly-folded up letter were sitting. "A letter? From who?"

"This arrived from Tokyo earlier this afternoon." Tokiomi said, taking the letter and handed it to Rin. Taking it, Rin gave it a glance and looked at her father with a confused expression on her face.

"It's blank." She said, prompting Tokiomi to raise an eyebrow.

"Is it?" he asked with a chiding note, and Rin blushed slightly. True, if a seemingly-blank letter had caused her father to be…concerned, for one reason or another, then there was more to it than it seemed. Opening her circuits, she scanned the paper in her hands, only to blink as it registered as nothing more than letter paper, if very high-quality letter paper.

Rin regarded the paper closely, wondering what could possibly be concerning from this blank piece of paper with nothing special to it.

"Some things can be both profound and simple at the same time, Rin." Tokiomi reminded her, the younger magus glancing up at her father before looking back at the paper. Holding it slightly away from her, it took her only a few moments to recognize that the letter was not in fact, blank, and that the answer to her question had been staring at her in the face from the very beginning.

Embossed in the middle of the page, and which she took as mere background decoration but probably was not, was a golden crest of wisteria flowers.

A/N

Yes, Tokiomi and Aoi are still alive. Sakura is still a Tohsaka, and Shirou has a special relationship with them. Rin is less…aloof, i.e. more engaged with her fellow students/peers. As for how this could happen, let's just say certain butterflies set off a massive typhoon of changes in the timeline.

With that said, those of you with some background knowledge of Japanese history could probably guess by now which clan the Matou made an enemy of.

Updates will be long in between, Transposition and Moonlit Fate being my focuses right now.