Hohzuki Academy.
Shinji had been dragged to school early by Sakura. The moment he entered the classroom, he saw Shirou slumped over his desk, sporting enormous dark circles and looking utterly drained.
Since they had arrived early, Shinji and Shirou were the only ones in the classroom.
Oh, and when Shinji had seen Rin in the hallway earlier, she had looked no different from Shirou did now.
One, two, three...
Three giant pandas in one day. Hohzuki Academy really was a magical place.
"Yo, morning, Emiya."
"Ah, morning." Shirou glanced at Shinji as he approached, then weakly raised a hand in greeting.
"Didn't go to morning practice?" Shinji sat in the seat in front of Shirou. "Come to think of it... don't tell me you didn't sleep at all last night?"
Shirou let out a long sigh without answering. He and Saber had spent the entire night cutting down skeleton soldiers, yet even after chasing her for most of the night, they still hadn't caught that slippery Caster.
Rin, who had likewise been toyed with by Caster's twisted sense of humor all night long, finally exploded when dawn was approaching. She pointed at the ceiling and cursed for a good ten minutes!
Naturally, Caster, who was at Ryuudou Temple, had surely seen all of it. She might even have been laughing herself silly.
In the end, Rin temporarily revised her strategy for dealing with Caster.
—Find and investigate her Master first, then work from there!
Shirou agreed with that plan as well. The enemy was simply too cunning. They couldn't intercept her, and they couldn't catch up to her either. Haah!
Seeing that Shirou wasn't answering, Shinji didn't press him further. Instead, he kindly suggested, "Anyway, I don't know what happened, but you'd better get some proper rest tonight. Otherwise,