"Hajimari no Hi" (始まりの日)

The episode begins in Fuyuki city where two figures are seen fighting against each other, causing a big blaze all over the city. Fast forward 10 years later, the time has come once again, for the participation of 7 classes of sorcerers and their (usually male) servants to battle each other for the possession of the Holy Grail. Cut to a scene of a girl doing a summoning spell, asking the thing that she summons to come tonight. She looks satisfied with herself upon doing the spell but all of a sudden, there is a huge explosion coming from her living room. When she goes to check it out, the roof of the room is now wide open and inside the room, a guy with a white hair sits in a rather arrogant pose. The guy then tells the girl that it seems he's been summoned by an unexpected master. The girl looks unhappy upon seeing the guy. Anyone who has played the game would know that this is because she was expecting another person.

After the opening sequence, a boy called Emiya Shirou is seen having a flashback of the time when he was the only survivor of the blaze that consumed Fuyuki city and saved by a kind man. The boy is then seen waking up upon hearing the voice of a girl called Matou Sakura. It seems Shirou was falling asleep while fixing a tape recorder. Sakura then tells him that she's preparing breakfast and that his teacher, Fujimura-sensei, will over to have breakfast with them as usual. Shirou then explains that ever since his adopted father, Emiya Kiritsugu, passed away, he's been taken care of by his teacher, Fujimura-sensei, and his friend's sister, Sakura. Sakura actually came to cook some meal for Shirou when he was injured about 1 year ago. Ever since then, however, for some reason she has been coming to the house to give Shirou various help. For some reason this part of the story really does come across like a dating sim game.

As Shirou and Sakura are on their way to the school the two notice that the police seems to be busy doing investigation all over the city. Since Shirou doesn't know what's going on, however, he decides to ignore it. At school, Shirou decides to fix a machine in the student council room using magic power. Unfortunately Shirou's magic power is limited to being able to examine the internal mechanism of an object. After Shirou is finished with the machine, he goes out into the hall to catch up with his friend, Issei, but as the two walk together, they pass the girl who did the summoning spell the night before. The girl, whose name is Tohsaka Rin, is apparently a trouble maker at school and has the tendency to skip class. Later on in class, Fujimura-sensei arrives late and in her attempt to rush in, falls into the floor. The students immediately make fun of her by calling her 'Tiger', because her first name is Taiga.

Meanwhile on the rooftop, Tohsaka Rin is seen talking to the white haired guy, whose name turned out to be Archer. She wants to know if he can find other servants that are on the move. Unfortunately Archer doesn't have the ability to detect the enemies from far away. Rin then realises that the kind of servant that has this ability is the Caster types. Because of this she tells Archer that she's going to come with him to look for the other servants. Meanwhile, Shirou is seen having lunch with Issei, who informs him that the police activities he saw this morning was an investigation of murder where the victim was four people in a family. This news seems to disturb Shirou, and on his way to his part-time job, remembers how at one point he told his adopted father that he wants to use his power to save everyone. His father, however, told him that such ideal is difficult to achieve. Shirou, however, believes that he can save everyone.

On his way back from work, Shirou encounters a young girl in Russian outfit who warns him that if he doesn't do the summoning quickly, he'll die soon. Once he gets home, Fujimura-sensei makes fun of his intention of helping the helpless by showing him a poster of the army. After Fujimura and Sakura leaves, Shirou reminisces of the time when his adopted father, Kiritsugu, told him that he's a sorcerer. Shirou also remembers that his father once asked him not to use magic in front of the public and that when he does use magic, it is used for the good of others not himself. Whilst thinking about it, he grabs a newspaper roll and after a while, the roll turns into a metallic bar. Meanwhile, Rin and Archer, are seen examining the city. It seems that Archer has a sharp eye sight because he tells Rin that he knows the number of bolts that are used on the bridge far far away from where the two are standing. The two then start flying together into the city.