Act 5: Rider
In conclusion, “he” was a being as foreign as could be.
“He” was summoned to this false Holy Grail War as a Servant of
the Rider class.
“His” existence was proof that this Holy Grail War was false; proof
that there was nothing less worthy of the title “Holy Grail” than the
object of this War.
Only in name was “he” a Heroic Spirit, and “he” was not by any
means a Hero.
Then, a Villainous Spirit? A Demonic Spirit? Nay. Neither term
suffices to describe “him”. In some places, “he” was described as a
“curse”, while in some religions, “he” was said to be “divine punishment”.
In the Holy Grail War, Servants are selected from the past and the
future—from every age of mankind’s history.
The classes into which the Servants are summoned transcend time.
A Hero of the past, known only via lore, may be summoned, as may a
Hero of the future, not yet born into this world. If the Holy Grail War
had existed when Amakusa Shirou lived, he may have even been able
to summon his more powerful future self, an icon of heroism.
From that perspective—“he” had existed since time immemorial,
and “he” would likely continue to exist far into the future. “He” lived a
shorter life than anyone, and “he” lived a longer life than anyone.
And so, “he”—a being with physical presence, though not a Heroic
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Spirit—
Even at this very moment—there is no doubt that “he” continues
to take the lives of those that live on this planet.
Indeed, perhaps “he” does so so that “he” may “himself ” provide
nourishment for life to begin anew.
How beautiful.
Thus thought a certain young girl as she gazed upon that which
sprawled before her.
It was a city she was familiar with.
It was the city where she was raised. Ever so many buildings towered
over her, scraping the vast sky above with such vigor that they
seemed ready to swallow her up too.
A pair of six-lane causeways met at a mighty intersection. The primary
north-south and east-west arterial roads of the City of Snowfield
met there, not far from the city center. From the skies above, the roads
would seem to form an enormous crucifix, identifying the nexus of the
city.
An observer looking only upon those grand roadways might well
think himself to be in a city as grand as New York or Chicago. Indeed,
those roads raced past the city limits into the multifarious natural environments
surrounding Snowfield with such ardor, it was as though
they had asserted that they were a part of those surroundings—nay,
that they were in fact the culmination, the perfection of all nature.
But—something was amiss.
And the girl found this city, this familiar city, to be beautiful precisely
because something was amiss.
She stood at the center of the enormous intersection, which was
itself at the center of the city.
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It was a scramble intersection, allowing pedestrians to cross it in
every which way—but, of course, vehicular traffic would resume at
some point, forcing one to vacate the road.
And yet, she had stood there for more than ten minutes.
The traffic lights had cycled any number of times.
But—silence reigned. Not a single car honked at her.
And that was as it should be—
For there was not a single human anywhere to be seen.
An empty intersection.
A road devoid of vehicles.
Did she notice that it was silent? Then again, did she even notice
that it was odorless?
From the middle of the road, it was clear that the causeways lacked
any human presence.
The girl imagined an asphalt-colored red carpet, a most contradictory
thing. She was overwhelmed by the beauty of the complex of tall
buildings before her.
In the absence of people, concrete—that symbol of humankind—
seemed like a beautiful object of nature, sprung from the Earth’s surface.
If a building were a tree, what a grand, harmonious forest this city
would be. In that case, the city hall tower, tallest of them all, would be
a veteran among them.
She knew not why she was there.
Hence, she wandered the town in search of an answer.
But that brought sadness unto her.
Though she found this world beautiful in its lack of people, she also
found it lonely.
At first, she felt nothing but loneliness; within a few days, though,
she had grown accustomed to it.
Indeed. She had wandered this empty town for a long, long time.
After about three months, she had stopped counting the days.
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She was never struck by hunger, though she knew not why. During
the day she would wander the town, and come dusk, she would sleep.
At night, lights would go on in the empty buildings. She would look
up at the night sky and be comforted by the stars. Few things are more
unsettling than witnessing lights go on in a building empty of people,
but she had long since grown used to it, faced with the absurdity of a
city empty of people.
As loneliness departed her heart, the void it left was filled by the
pleasure she felt from being in this empty city.
After looking about the city a while, she lay down in the middle of
the intersection and idly gazed up at the night sky
Daddy. Mommy.
The faces of her parents came to mind.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it right.
Her first instinct was to apologize.
But then, she realized that she wasn’t even doing anything she
should apologize for, and—.
Two old emotions welled up within her.
One was loneliness, stemming from the impossibility of encountering
anyone else.
The other was
Snowfield Central Hospital
An enormous edifice stood in the central district of the City of
Snowfield, covered in white paint.
At a glance, it looked very much like an art museum. In fact, however,
it was a large hospital, furnished with the finest equipment in the
city.
It was a castle of healing. Multitudes of patients knocked at its
gates, seeking treatment from surgeons and psychosomaticists and all
sorts of other specialists.
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Of course, not all the patients came for elective procedures. Many
were brought to the hospital for other reasons.
“...I am afraid that I must inform you that it will be difficult for
your daughter to regain consciousness from this state,” said a doctor to
a man and a woman.
They glanced at each other. They were probably in their thirties,
and seemed to be from East Asia. They seemed more than a little flustered.
“As of today, our daughter has been hospitalized for one full year....
Is that a sign that her condition has taken a turn for the worse?” asked
the man, in fluent English.
“...Physically speaking, there are no symptoms that would suggest
your daughter’s condition is worsening. Nonetheless, it becomes more
difficult to recover from a coma as the duration of the coma increases.”
The patient had been under her care for a full year now, and had
yet to recover consciousness. She had entered a vegetative state. Only
her body continued to develop, and that too, at a slow pace.
She was just ten years and three months of age.
Who knows what happened to her. One day, she abruptly lost
consciousness and wouldn’t wake up, and so, her parents, terrified,
brought her to this hospital.
An examination revealed that her body was studded with lesions,
particularly around her cranium.
After performing a biopsy on one of the lesions, it was found that
they were caused by an unknown strain of bacteria. The doctors all
panicked, fearing an epidemic within the hospital.
In the end, the bacteria turned out not to be contagious, leaving it
a mystery as to how the girl herself became infected in the first place.
The doctors considered having a hospital with even more advanced
facilities examine her, but for whatever reason, they were denied access,
and so, the girl remained under observation in this municipal hospital.
“We have not observed any changes in the state of the bacterial infestation.
Unfortunately, this means that the bacteria will continue to
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impede her cerebral function going forward. The bacteria have not
caused so much damage as to induce necrosis; nonetheless, they have
severely impeded her mental functions.” The doctor spoke as soothingly
as she could.
“Is that so....” replied the woman, worry permeating her voice.
“Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that recovery is impossible.
There have been cases where a patient has been in a vegetative state
for over 10 years before regaining consciousness. As we learn more
about the genome of the bacterium, more treatment options will become
available to us. Please, don’t lose hope.” She was doing her best
to keep their spirits up, but—
The patient’s father looked ever more disconsolate.
“Never mind her consciousness... are her reproductive functions
still intact?” he asked.
“...Pardon?”
For a moment, she didn’t understand what she was being asked.
She simply could not grasp what he had meant by “never mind her
consciousness”. For a short while, there was a powerful silence.
Before long, the man spoke again, unwilling to let the silence drag
on. Rephrasing his question in greater detail, he said, “I would like to
know whether or not her ovaries and uterus—or at the very least, just
her ovaries—are developing normally.”
“Er... well, the lesions are only inhibiting growth in the part of her
brain to which they are localized, so there haven’t been any adverse
effects on her other organs, but...” The doctor just told him the facts
as they were, still unable to figure out why he was asking about that.
But—
Upon hearing her response, the patient’s parents looked at each
other once again. Their faces lit up.
“Really!? Well, in that case, thank you ever so much! We will continue
to pay her hospital bills as we have been, so please, continue taking
good care of our daughter!”
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“I’m sorry? That’s not... I mean...”
“We are truly grateful to you, doctor. There, you see, dear? You
don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
“Right you are, honey. Let’s get going... we need to make preparations
for tonight.”
The young couple waltzed out of the hospital in high spirits, leaving
behind the utterly perplexed doctor.
She had no idea what would be appropriate to say to them, and so,
she just stared at them as they departed.
“Goodness me.... What was the matter with them...?”
Perhaps the shock of finding their daughter comatose had left them
all muddled up. The next time they came to the hospital, she would
have to recommend that they attend counseling.
As she thought about the peculiar couple, she stepped through the
exterior door to the sterile room.
After being sprayed with a disinfecting gas and scoured with ultraviolet
light, the interior door opened, to reveal a single bed.
On the bed lay a sleeping girl with an IV drip.
Though it seemed at first glance as though she was merely asleep,
her face was emaciated and lifeless, and it did not seem as though she
would ever regain consciousness.
“...Even if your parents abandon you, I won’t. I’ll never give up on
you.”
The only sound emanating from the girl was the sound of her
breath. As the doctor looked at her, she checked her IV drip and her
vitals with a renewed determination.
And then—she discovered something unusual.
“...oh?”
She noticed the abnormality while she was repositioning the girl.
Something red appeared on the right hand of the motionless girl.
“What... are these...?”
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She took a closer look at the girl’s hand. There, she saw crimson
sigils that reminded her of loops of chain.
“A tattoo...? But who?”
Access to the girl’s room was strictly controlled, and there was no
way anybody could have brought tattoo implements inside. Besides—
when she had checked on the girl that same morning, there was certainly
nothing out of the ordinary. A chill ran down her spine.
“Is this... some kind of... prank?”
And though there was no way she could even have known that
magi actually existed—
Those marks were, without a doubt, Command Spells.
The other was a blend of pain and fear.
She was still a young girl, but when she remembered what her parents
had done to her when she was younger still—
That was certainly not cruelty. Rather, it was rationally-applied
love. ““We will make you into an illustrious mage.””
They showered her with love as they spoke those words. Though
she was young, she understood that.
And yet, the pain ate away at her.
The pain the pain the pain pain pain pain pain pain dominated her
childhood. Even though she must have had pleasant memories, happy
memories, and sad memories, they were all overwritten by overwhelming
pain.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do it right, so...”
Even when she tried to forget, she could not overcome the pain.
If it had been mere cruelty, she may have been able to seal all of
that away.
Unfortunately for her, she really did feel that her parents loved her.
Indeed, that was why she could not flee. She could do nothing but
suffer through it.
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From a young age, she believed that she could reciprocate her parents’
love by suffering.
Alas, she did not understand that her parents did not love her as
a person. They only loved her as a vessel for the continuance of their
family line—as their future in the world of magic.
Her parents both carried a magical pedigree, and indeed, were
among those that made off with some of the machinery underlying
the actual Holy Grail War.
The knowledge they gained was relevant not just to the Holy Grail
War—they had also acquired part of a certain mage’s system of entomomancy1,
and quickly adapted it to their own use.
Their goal: to develop a new way to modify the flesh using even
smaller bugs.
And after decades of trial and error—they were finally on their way
to perfecting a sort of pseudo-entomomancy.
They used magically-modified bacteria that would better their
host.
If they were properly used in the body of a young mage, they would
amplify the mage’s Magic Circuits. That was their plan.
Once they had perfected their techniques, they chose their firstborn
daughter as their distinguished first test subject. She experienced
great agony. Though her body was scarcely altered, her Magic Circuits
had been amplified beyond measure.
As she grew up, her Magic Circuits approached completion. All
that was left was for her to inherit the magic of her family. Then, their
plan would have been a perfect success, but—
Unluckily for them, they lost control of some of the bacteria, and
so the still-young girl was deprived of her consciousness.
In order to ensure that it would remain possible for their daughter,
with her amplified Magic Circuits, to succeed them, her parents
hospitalized her. Of course, by this point, her parents had no interest
1蟲使い
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in her as a person.
And then—
As yet unaware that her parents had all but forsaken her, she wandered
on and on in the world of her dreams, a cleft between life and
death.
Perhaps because of how the bacteria modified her, her dreams
were far and away more realistic than any ordinary dream. In the end,
though, it was but a world in which she could neither taste nor smell.
It was but a dream.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I’m sorry for hurting...!”
As she experienced flashbacks to her past, she screamed out into
the empty world. Though she brimmed with magical energy, she
lacked knowledge. She was a witch—but a powerless one.
In her dream, she mustered all the strength she had—and she
screamed. On and on.
As if to support her, her altered body made her Magic Circuits run
wild in the world of her dreams.
As if they recognized they were going to vanish; as if they were
mere children crying out “Don’t leave me!”—every cell in her body
cried out.
“I’ll do it right! I will, I’ll bear the pain!”
And though she did not know what it was she should do right—
“So please, please don’t leave me! Don’t leave me...!”
Then—she saw a flash of light.
There was a mighty gust of wind—a roar in a soundless world.
She didn’t know what was going on. She leapt to her feet, and
looked around the intersection and—
All of the roads were covered in a black fog.
Something had changed, but she couldn’t understand what it was.
As she stood there utterly stupefied, a voice rang out.
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It was a grating sound, like the scraping noise of swarms of insects
battling one another.
And yet, those were words—words with meaning.
“ I A S K : A R E Y O U M Y M A S T E R ? ”
She could not have known what those words meant, and yet—
That Servant was bizarre beyond measure.
To begin with, “he” lacked a persona—let alone the nature of a
Hero. After all, “he” was not a human in the first place.
When “he” was granted knowledge by the Holy Grail, however,
“he” appeared as a Servant, in the form of a formless mass of awareness.
“He” had neither emotions nor even internal monologue. “He”
was a mere mass of knowledge about the Holy Grail War, created by
the system—something like a robot.
The words “he” spoke were like dread incarnate, but—
She was not scared.
Someone was there, so she would no longer be lonely. Something
had changed in her unchanging world.
She was so happy about that—that she looked up at the skyscrapers
shrouded by the black haze, and timidly told “him” her name.
“Who are you? My name is Kuruoka Tsubaki.”
And so, she became the distinguished first Master of the false Holy
Grail War.
None could have known of their contract, forged in a dream, and—
Indeed, in the outside world, the girl remained unconscious.
Snowfield — the Kuruoka residence
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“It’s about time for Faldeus to issue his declaration.”
After returning from the hospital, the Kuruokas were in high spirits,
getting ready for the ceremony they would conduct that night.
“The ley lines of this area should soon be at their mightiest. Then,
I will receive my Command Spells. Once I have them, everything will
be in place.”
“Plus, we’ve even prepared a Noble Phantasm as a relic... and if it
came down to it, we could use it as a weapon ourselves.”
“Indeed we could. If we are to call forth Shi Huangdi, we must be
prepared to demonstrate a proper degree of respect.”
Their daughter was not a matter of discussion at this point.
Apparently, they were preparing to summon the most celebrated
figure in Chinese history.
Unfortunately for them, all their preparations would be fruitless.
Not because their unconscious daughter had taken the Command
Spells that would have been theirs.
If that were the only issue, they could well have received a different
set of Command Spells.
In the end, they did not receive any Command Spells—
But they did receive something else.
Sensing something unusual, the husband looked at his right arm.
“Mm...?”
There was a black spot.
At first glance, it looked like a bruise. He frowned, wondering if he
had bumped against something. He looked over to his wife.
“Dear, what do you think this... hey!?”
He was shocked.
Similar black spots appeared all over her face and her arms—and
then, she collapsed to the ground, like a marionette whose strings had
been cut.
“H-hey...!?”
He tried to get to his wife, but his field of view grew mushy and
indistinct. Everything split into a rainbow of colors and fell upwards.
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By the time he realized that it was he who was falling, it was too
late. He did not even have the strength to stand.
As he laid on the verge of unconsciousness, he understood what
was happening.
Magical energy was being sucked out of his body and carried off to
somewhere else.
As it was not his actual life-energy that was being stolen, he would
not die from this. However, he would certainly fall into a stupor.
This can’t be.
If someone... attacks us now....
No, what if... somebody... already....
Even as he fell into an eternal darkness, his mind was full with
thoughts about the Holy Grail War. Not once did his daughter cross
his mind.
And then, a few minutes later—
Both of them leaped to their feet as though nothing had happened.
Their bodies were still covered with the black spots.
“...Come to think of it, today is Tsubaki’s birthday, isn’t it?”
“Ah, that’s right, dear! I’ve got to bake a cake!”
They were conspicuously unwell, and yet they spoke calmly. And
about something out of the ordinary for them, at that.
Indeed, they had lost whatever personalities they once had and—
They became living dolls, who lived their lives just as their daughter
wanted them to.
She danced with “him”. She danced with “him”.
To forget the time she spent awake.
“He” danced with her. “He” danced with her.
To grant her every wish.
“Yay! Thank you! Daddy! Mommy!”
“It’s okay, Tsubaki. You did a good job.”
“That’s right. You’re our precious little treasure.”
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Having received such a wonderful present, she gaily frolicked
about her house.
After having her fun for a while, she smiled at the mass of black
fog that stood next to her.
“Thank you for bringing my mom and dad here!”
The Servant did not even nod in reply. “He” merely continued to
exist.
The sights of the real world were projected into her dreams.
Perhaps that was the power of the magical energy that had blossomed
within her while she was unconscious. Given that it is impossible
to affect the real world from within a dreamscape, however, magic
used to project the real world into a dream-world was useless; a line of
research that few magi would bother to pursue.
The Servant merely facilitated the girl’s unconscious magic.
“He” manipulated her parents in the real world so that they would
behave just as she wanted them to.
Of course, “he” also absorbed their magical energy. “His” instincts
compelled him to do so.
“He” could not understand human emotions. “He” merely possessed
knowledge.
And indeed, because of that, and because of the great strength “he”
had, “he” made the girl into the greatest and worst dark horse of the
Holy Grail War.
“He” rode on the wind and the waters and the birds and the people
and—
Hence, it was appropriate for “him” to be of the Rider class, for “he”
had ridden “his” way to dominance over the world.
Much more importantly, however—
“He” was an embodiment of calamity, and the people gave “him”
an alias that reflected that. Perhaps that spurious assignment of a
personality to “him” was the most important reason that “he” was
summoned as Rider.
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At one time, “he” let loose the Black Death, which killed thirty million,
And at another time, under the name of the Spanish Flu, “he” killed
fifty million.
“He” was the horseman who brought calamity to all. His alias:
Pestilence.
As to whether anyone would recognize what “his” alias is, or indeed,
that “he” had been summoned as a Servant in the first place—
Either way, the false Holy Grail War was finally on its way to becoming
a maelstrom of chaos.
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Act 5: Rider
In conclusion, “he” was a being as foreign as could be.
“He” was summoned to this false Holy Grail War as a Servant of
the Rider class.
“His” existence was proof that this Holy Grail War was false; proof
that there was nothing less worthy of the title “Holy Grail” than the
object of this War.
Only in name was “he” a Heroic Spirit, and “he” was not by any
means a Hero.
Then, a Villainous Spirit? A Demonic Spirit? Nay. Neither term
suffices to describe “him”. In some places, “he” was described as a
“curse”, while in some religions, “he” was said to be “divine punishment”.
In the Holy Grail War, Servants are selected from the past and the
future—from every age of mankind’s history.
The classes into which the Servants are summoned transcend time.
A Hero of the past, known only via lore, may be summoned, as may a
Hero of the future, not yet born into this world. If the Holy Grail War
had existed when Amakusa Shirou lived, he may have even been able
to summon his more powerful future self, an icon of heroism.
From that perspective—“he” had existed since time immemorial,
and “he” would likely continue to exist far into the future. “He” lived a
shorter life than anyone, and “he” lived a longer life than anyone.
And so, “he”—a being with physical presence, though not a Heroic
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Spirit—
Even at this very moment—there is no doubt that “he” continues
to take the lives of those that live on this planet.
Indeed, perhaps “he” does so so that “he” may “himself ” provide
nourishment for life to begin anew.
How beautiful.
Thus thought a certain young girl as she gazed upon that which
sprawled before her.
It was a city she was familiar with.
It was the city where she was raised. Ever so many buildings towered
over her, scraping the vast sky above with such vigor that they
seemed ready to swallow her up too.
A pair of six-lane causeways met at a mighty intersection. The primary
north-south and east-west arterial roads of the City of Snowfield
met there, not far from the city center. From the skies above, the roads
would seem to form an enormous crucifix, identifying the nexus of the
city.
An observer looking only upon those grand roadways might well
think himself to be in a city as grand as New York or Chicago. Indeed,
those roads raced past the city limits into the multifarious natural environments
surrounding Snowfield with such ardor, it was as though
they had asserted that they were a part of those surroundings—nay,
that they were in fact the culmination, the perfection of all nature.
But—something was amiss.
And the girl found this city, this familiar city, to be beautiful precisely
because something was amiss.
She stood at the center of the enormous intersection, which was
itself at the center of the city.
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It was a scramble intersection, allowing pedestrians to cross it in
every which way—but, of course, vehicular traffic would resume at
some point, forcing one to vacate the road.
And yet, she had stood there for more than ten minutes.
The traffic lights had cycled any number of times.
But—silence reigned. Not a single car honked at her.
And that was as it should be—
For there was not a single human anywhere to be seen.
An empty intersection.
A road devoid of vehicles.
Did she notice that it was silent? Then again, did she even notice
that it was odorless?
From the middle of the road, it was clear that the causeways lacked
any human presence.
The girl imagined an asphalt-colored red carpet, a most contradictory
thing. She was overwhelmed by the beauty of the complex of tall
buildings before her.
In the absence of people, concrete—that symbol of humankind—
seemed like a beautiful object of nature, sprung from the Earth’s surface.
If a building were a tree, what a grand, harmonious forest this city
would be. In that case, the city hall tower, tallest of them all, would be
a veteran among them.
She knew not why she was there.
Hence, she wandered the town in search of an answer.
But that brought sadness unto her.
Though she found this world beautiful in its lack of people, she also
found it lonely.
At first, she felt nothing but loneliness; within a few days, though,
she had grown accustomed to it.
Indeed. She had wandered this empty town for a long, long time.
After about three months, she had stopped counting the days.
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She was never struck by hunger, though she knew not why. During
the day she would wander the town, and come dusk, she would sleep.
At night, lights would go on in the empty buildings. She would look
up at the night sky and be comforted by the stars. Few things are more
unsettling than witnessing lights go on in a building empty of people,
but she had long since grown used to it, faced with the absurdity of a
city empty of people.
As loneliness departed her heart, the void it left was filled by the
pleasure she felt from being in this empty city.
After looking about the city a while, she lay down in the middle of
the intersection and idly gazed up at the night sky
Daddy. Mommy.
The faces of her parents came to mind.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it right.
Her first instinct was to apologize.
But then, she realized that she wasn’t even doing anything she
should apologize for, and—.
Two old emotions welled up within her.
One was loneliness, stemming from the impossibility of encountering
anyone else.
The other was
Snowfield Central Hospital
An enormous edifice stood in the central district of the City of
Snowfield, covered in white paint.
At a glance, it looked very much like an art museum. In fact, however,
it was a large hospital, furnished with the finest equipment in the
city.
It was a castle of healing. Multitudes of patients knocked at its
gates, seeking treatment from surgeons and psychosomaticists and all
sorts of other specialists.
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Of course, not all the patients came for elective procedures. Many
were brought to the hospital for other reasons.
“...I am afraid that I must inform you that it will be difficult for
your daughter to regain consciousness from this state,” said a doctor to
a man and a woman.
They glanced at each other. They were probably in their thirties,
and seemed to be from East Asia. They seemed more than a little flustered.
“As of today, our daughter has been hospitalized for one full year....
Is that a sign that her condition has taken a turn for the worse?” asked
the man, in fluent English.
“...Physically speaking, there are no symptoms that would suggest
your daughter’s condition is worsening. Nonetheless, it becomes more
difficult to recover from a coma as the duration of the coma increases.”
The patient had been under her care for a full year now, and had
yet to recover consciousness. She had entered a vegetative state. Only
her body continued to develop, and that too, at a slow pace.
She was just ten years and three months of age.
Who knows what happened to her. One day, she abruptly lost
consciousness and wouldn’t wake up, and so, her parents, terrified,
brought her to this hospital.
An examination revealed that her body was studded with lesions,
particularly around her cranium.
After performing a biopsy on one of the lesions, it was found that
they were caused by an unknown strain of bacteria. The doctors all
panicked, fearing an epidemic within the hospital.
In the end, the bacteria turned out not to be contagious, leaving it
a mystery as to how the girl herself became infected in the first place.
The doctors considered having a hospital with even more advanced
facilities examine her, but for whatever reason, they were denied access,
and so, the girl remained under observation in this municipal hospital.
“We have not observed any changes in the state of the bacterial infestation.
Unfortunately, this means that the bacteria will continue to
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impede her cerebral function going forward. The bacteria have not
caused so much damage as to induce necrosis; nonetheless, they have
severely impeded her mental functions.” The doctor spoke as soothingly
as she could.
“Is that so....” replied the woman, worry permeating her voice.
“Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that recovery is impossible.
There have been cases where a patient has been in a vegetative state
for over 10 years before regaining consciousness. As we learn more
about the genome of the bacterium, more treatment options will become
available to us. Please, don’t lose hope.” She was doing her best
to keep their spirits up, but—
The patient’s father looked ever more disconsolate.
“Never mind her consciousness... are her reproductive functions
still intact?” he asked.
“...Pardon?”
For a moment, she didn’t understand what she was being asked.
She simply could not grasp what he had meant by “never mind her
consciousness”. For a short while, there was a powerful silence.
Before long, the man spoke again, unwilling to let the silence drag
on. Rephrasing his question in greater detail, he said, “I would like to
know whether or not her ovaries and uterus—or at the very least, just
her ovaries—are developing normally.”
“Er... well, the lesions are only inhibiting growth in the part of her
brain to which they are localized, so there haven’t been any adverse
effects on her other organs, but...” The doctor just told him the facts
as they were, still unable to figure out why he was asking about that.
But—
Upon hearing her response, the patient’s parents looked at each
other once again. Their faces lit up.
“Really!? Well, in that case, thank you ever so much! We will continue
to pay her hospital bills as we have been, so please, continue taking
good care of our daughter!”
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“I’m sorry? That’s not... I mean...”
“We are truly grateful to you, doctor. There, you see, dear? You
don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
“Right you are, honey. Let’s get going... we need to make preparations
for tonight.”
The young couple waltzed out of the hospital in high spirits, leaving
behind the utterly perplexed doctor.
She had no idea what would be appropriate to say to them, and so,
she just stared at them as they departed.
“Goodness me.... What was the matter with them...?”
Perhaps the shock of finding their daughter comatose had left them
all muddled up. The next time they came to the hospital, she would
have to recommend that they attend counseling.
As she thought about the peculiar couple, she stepped through the
exterior door to the sterile room.
After being sprayed with a disinfecting gas and scoured with ultraviolet
light, the interior door opened, to reveal a single bed.
On the bed lay a sleeping girl with an IV drip.
Though it seemed at first glance as though she was merely asleep,
her face was emaciated and lifeless, and it did not seem as though she
would ever regain consciousness.
“...Even if your parents abandon you, I won’t. I’ll never give up on
you.”
The only sound emanating from the girl was the sound of her
breath. As the doctor looked at her, she checked her IV drip and her
vitals with a renewed determination.
And then—she discovered something unusual.
“...oh?”
She noticed the abnormality while she was repositioning the girl.
Something red appeared on the right hand of the motionless girl.
“What... are these...?”
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She took a closer look at the girl’s hand. There, she saw crimson
sigils that reminded her of loops of chain.
“A tattoo...? But who?”
Access to the girl’s room was strictly controlled, and there was no
way anybody could have brought tattoo implements inside. Besides—
when she had checked on the girl that same morning, there was certainly
nothing out of the ordinary. A chill ran down her spine.
“Is this... some kind of... prank?”
And though there was no way she could even have known that
magi actually existed—
Those marks were, without a doubt, Command Spells.
The other was a blend of pain and fear.
She was still a young girl, but when she remembered what her parents
had done to her when she was younger still—
That was certainly not cruelty. Rather, it was rationally-applied
love. ““We will make you into an illustrious mage.””
They showered her with love as they spoke those words. Though
she was young, she understood that.
And yet, the pain ate away at her.
The pain the pain the pain pain pain pain pain pain dominated her
childhood. Even though she must have had pleasant memories, happy
memories, and sad memories, they were all overwritten by overwhelming
pain.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do it right, so...”
Even when she tried to forget, she could not overcome the pain.
If it had been mere cruelty, she may have been able to seal all of
that away.
Unfortunately for her, she really did feel that her parents loved her.
Indeed, that was why she could not flee. She could do nothing but
suffer through it.
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From a young age, she believed that she could reciprocate her parents’
love by suffering.
Alas, she did not understand that her parents did not love her as
a person. They only loved her as a vessel for the continuance of their
family line—as their future in the world of magic.
Her parents both carried a magical pedigree, and indeed, were
among those that made off with some of the machinery underlying
the actual Holy Grail War.
The knowledge they gained was relevant not just to the Holy Grail
War—they had also acquired part of a certain mage’s system of entomomancy1,
and quickly adapted it to their own use.
Their goal: to develop a new way to modify the flesh using even
smaller bugs.
And after decades of trial and error—they were finally on their way
to perfecting a sort of pseudo-entomomancy.
They used magically-modified bacteria that would better their
host.
If they were properly used in the body of a young mage, they would
amplify the mage’s Magic Circuits. That was their plan.
Once they had perfected their techniques, they chose their firstborn
daughter as their distinguished first test subject. She experienced
great agony. Though her body was scarcely altered, her Magic Circuits
had been amplified beyond measure.
As she grew up, her Magic Circuits approached completion. All
that was left was for her to inherit the magic of her family. Then, their
plan would have been a perfect success, but—
Unluckily for them, they lost control of some of the bacteria, and
so the still-young girl was deprived of her consciousness.
In order to ensure that it would remain possible for their daughter,
with her amplified Magic Circuits, to succeed them, her parents
hospitalized her. Of course, by this point, her parents had no interest
1蟲使い
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in her as a person.
And then—
As yet unaware that her parents had all but forsaken her, she wandered
on and on in the world of her dreams, a cleft between life and
death.
Perhaps because of how the bacteria modified her, her dreams
were far and away more realistic than any ordinary dream. In the end,
though, it was but a world in which she could neither taste nor smell.
It was but a dream.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I’m sorry for hurting...!”
As she experienced flashbacks to her past, she screamed out into
the empty world. Though she brimmed with magical energy, she
lacked knowledge. She was a witch—but a powerless one.
In her dream, she mustered all the strength she had—and she
screamed. On and on.
As if to support her, her altered body made her Magic Circuits run
wild in the world of her dreams.
As if they recognized they were going to vanish; as if they were
mere children crying out “Don’t leave me!”—every cell in her body
cried out.
“I’ll do it right! I will, I’ll bear the pain!”
And though she did not know what it was she should do right—
“So please, please don’t leave me! Don’t leave me...!”
Then—she saw a flash of light.
There was a mighty gust of wind—a roar in a soundless world.
She didn’t know what was going on. She leapt to her feet, and
looked around the intersection and—
All of the roads were covered in a black fog.
Something had changed, but she couldn’t understand what it was.
As she stood there utterly stupefied, a voice rang out.
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It was a grating sound, like the scraping noise of swarms of insects
battling one another.
And yet, those were words—words with meaning.
“ I A S K : A R E Y O U M Y M A S T E R ? ”
She could not have known what those words meant, and yet—
That Servant was bizarre beyond measure.
To begin with, “he” lacked a persona—let alone the nature of a
Hero. After all, “he” was not a human in the first place.
When “he” was granted knowledge by the Holy Grail, however,
“he” appeared as a Servant, in the form of a formless mass of awareness.
“He” had neither emotions nor even internal monologue. “He”
was a mere mass of knowledge about the Holy Grail War, created by
the system—something like a robot.
The words “he” spoke were like dread incarnate, but—
She was not scared.
Someone was there, so she would no longer be lonely. Something
had changed in her unchanging world.
She was so happy about that—that she looked up at the skyscrapers
shrouded by the black haze, and timidly told “him” her name.
“Who are you? My name is Kuruoka Tsubaki.”
And so, she became the distinguished first Master of the false Holy
Grail War.
None could have known of their contract, forged in a dream, and—
Indeed, in the outside world, the girl remained unconscious.
Snowfield — the Kuruoka residence
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“It’s about time for Faldeus to issue his declaration.”
After returning from the hospital, the Kuruokas were in high spirits,
getting ready for the ceremony they would conduct that night.
“The ley lines of this area should soon be at their mightiest. Then,
I will receive my Command Spells. Once I have them, everything will
be in place.”
“Plus, we’ve even prepared a Noble Phantasm as a relic... and if it
came down to it, we could use it as a weapon ourselves.”
“Indeed we could. If we are to call forth Shi Huangdi, we must be
prepared to demonstrate a proper degree of respect.”
Their daughter was not a matter of discussion at this point.
Apparently, they were preparing to summon the most celebrated
figure in Chinese history.
Unfortunately for them, all their preparations would be fruitless.
Not because their unconscious daughter had taken the Command
Spells that would have been theirs.
If that were the only issue, they could well have received a different
set of Command Spells.
In the end, they did not receive any Command Spells—
But they did receive something else.
Sensing something unusual, the husband looked at his right arm.
“Mm...?”
There was a black spot.
At first glance, it looked like a bruise. He frowned, wondering if he
had bumped against something. He looked over to his wife.
“Dear, what do you think this... hey!?”
He was shocked.
Similar black spots appeared all over her face and her arms—and
then, she collapsed to the ground, like a marionette whose strings had
been cut.
“H-hey...!?”
He tried to get to his wife, but his field of view grew mushy and
indistinct. Everything split into a rainbow of colors and fell upwards.
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By the time he realized that it was he who was falling, it was too
late. He did not even have the strength to stand.
As he laid on the verge of unconsciousness, he understood what
was happening.
Magical energy was being sucked out of his body and carried off to
somewhere else.
As it was not his actual life-energy that was being stolen, he would
not die from this. However, he would certainly fall into a stupor.
This can’t be.
If someone... attacks us now....
No, what if... somebody... already....
Even as he fell into an eternal darkness, his mind was full with
thoughts about the Holy Grail War. Not once did his daughter cross
his mind.
And then, a few minutes later—
Both of them leaped to their feet as though nothing had happened.
Their bodies were still covered with the black spots.
“...Come to think of it, today is Tsubaki’s birthday, isn’t it?”
“Ah, that’s right, dear! I’ve got to bake a cake!”
They were conspicuously unwell, and yet they spoke calmly. And
about something out of the ordinary for them, at that.
Indeed, they had lost whatever personalities they once had and—
They became living dolls, who lived their lives just as their daughter
wanted them to.
She danced with “him”. She danced with “him”.
To forget the time she spent awake.
“He” danced with her. “He” danced with her.
To grant her every wish.
“Yay! Thank you! Daddy! Mommy!”
“It’s okay, Tsubaki. You did a good job.”
“That’s right. You’re our precious little treasure.”
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Having received such a wonderful present, she gaily frolicked
about her house.
After having her fun for a while, she smiled at the mass of black
fog that stood next to her.
“Thank you for bringing my mom and dad here!”
The Servant did not even nod in reply. “He” merely continued to
exist.
The sights of the real world were projected into her dreams.
Perhaps that was the power of the magical energy that had blossomed
within her while she was unconscious. Given that it is impossible
to affect the real world from within a dreamscape, however, magic
used to project the real world into a dream-world was useless; a line of
research that few magi would bother to pursue.
The Servant merely facilitated the girl’s unconscious magic.
“He” manipulated her parents in the real world so that they would
behave just as she wanted them to.
Of course, “he” also absorbed their magical energy. “His” instincts
compelled him to do so.
“He” could not understand human emotions. “He” merely possessed
knowledge.
And indeed, because of that, and because of the great strength “he”
had, “he” made the girl into the greatest and worst dark horse of the
Holy Grail War.
“He” rode on the wind and the waters and the birds and the people
and—
Hence, it was appropriate for “him” to be of the Rider class, for “he”
had ridden “his” way to dominance over the world.
Much more importantly, however—
“He” was an embodiment of calamity, and the people gave “him”
an alias that reflected that. Perhaps that spurious assignment of a
personality to “him” was the most important reason that “he” was
summoned as Rider.
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At one time, “he” let loose the Black Death, which killed thirty million,
And at another time, under the name of the Spanish Flu, “he” killed
fifty million.
“He” was the horseman who brought calamity to all. His alias:
Pestilence.
As to whether anyone would recognize what “his” alias is, or indeed,
that “he” had been summoned as a Servant in the first place—
Either way, the false Holy Grail War was finally on its way to becoming
a maelstrom of chaos.
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