The boy often dreamed of swords.

Not about swords being used, not about swords being forged. Just simply... "swords". There wasn't anything strange about it, as far as he was concerned. It just seemed like a matter of course to him. Much like someone else might dream through their own memories, another might regularly sleep through the exact same dream of an evening spent in a firelit room, and yet another might dream of nothing at all -- his dream pattern was simply that of swords. There was nothing particularly lucid about these dreams, or anything that would draw the focus or even coherent memories, so he didn't feel there was any reason to think about it after he woke up.

But this dream is different.

There are swords in this dream, yes, but he has never felt he could make the swords out so clearly before. Only vague shapes in a void -- not the countless swords stabbed upon the barren ground of a desert-like field, like gravestones marking the resting places of forgotten soldiers.

The vision doesn't last. The ground gives away and the swords fade into a distance. Like something is pulling him away. And the instant that vision of the world is gone, everything feels... different. Like he's not really in his dream anymore, but watching that of someone else's. A sensation like being pulled underwater, kept just at the edge of drowning, but without that darkness that would come with asphyxiation never truly enveloping him -- and washed away by a current beyond his strength.

How long does it last? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? Time should feel meaningless enough in a dream for such a thing to not be a concern, to not even acknowledge it, and yet that concern fills his head now.

Until something flickers in the dark. The current calms, even if the drowning sensation doesn't. It almost feels as if he's forced to see it; a hilly plain, covered in verdant green grass, dotted with the occasional solitary tree. Five large, jagged rocks in a peculiar formation, almost seeming artificial in their placement to form the silhouette of a clenched fist. The silhouette of a city painting the horizon just behind one hill.

The vision lingers for a time. Until cracks form through it. The fabric of the reality - or perhaps the dream? - coming undone, to the tune of a dreadful, deep droning sound. A familiar sound...?

And then, Shirou Emiya is awake.

Gone are the visions of swords, gone is the unfamiliar scenery-- but the sensation of something *different* lingers there. Rather than trying to go back to sleep, the red-haired boy instead lights up the room of one of the numerous inns and hotels he's been spending nights in since he was pulled out of Fuyuki, and moves with near-automation to go through some documents stored in his phone. What is driving him, exactly? He isn't thinking about it clearly, but... something is drawing him to find... what, exactly? Before he even really fully comprehends it, he has charts of Vines and a map of a certain hub world open.

None of it makes sense. And yet, he feels like he should follow this strange thread his mind has pulled on. Dreams shouldn't be trusted, surely, and there's no real chance that there's anything in this strangely-specific location his mind has seemingly wandered to...

"...But what if I do find it...?"

The way back home.