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Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver
Novel 2: Best Friend Arc - Act 1
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On a certain day in February 1999 AD.
The Reiroukan Main Estate, Tokyo.
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Shining in the moonlight, was an extravagant western-styled house.
If one is told that it was a royal mansion then they’d probably nod at it too.
Remarkably old even among the other houses and buildings, the structure which was filled with extravagant tastes is adequate enough for a ruler to sit in it. As a direct fact, in spite of not having a clear societal status, the Master of the Western-styled house had deep roots in the city and governed it, as if it was natural for them.
Reiroukan.
It is not the name of this mansion.
But rather, it is the name of the Master who owns and controls the house.
There in “Tokyo,” a city at the end of the east which even has the reputation for being a frontier in the magic world, is a ruler who has mastered multiple magic systems and has officially obtained rulership of mankind, as a leading influential person.
‘It’s a fitting mansion for a kind of king to spend the night in.’
The man thinks, as he walks through the second-floor hallway, while casually looking up at the exhaustingly neck high ceiling.
He was a tall man.
Peeking at his thoroughly trained body even from above his clothes, he was a hero.
From the ceiling, the man turns his eyes over towards the window.
The time is around midnight. The man’s keen gaze easily grasps, the dark garden which can’t be sighted by ordinary people. The reason for it is simple. It is because he is not an ordinary person.
He knows that there are several large breeds of dogs in the spacious front garden.
Hunting dogs. Not just a breed of dog, but real hunting dogs that carry the means to hunt their prey in their bodies.
More precisely, they are beings beyond that.
Not proper living creatures, they are a type of familiar, reconstructed as instruments for annihilation to rip apart any enemy who enters the premises. Indeed, even though there isn’t a sign of other people in the vicinity, the demon dogs are vigilantly sharpening their nerves. Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, but the man recognizes the red eyes of the demon dogs which were faintly shimmering with prana. To be doing that sort of activity for so many hours while in a combat ready state to rip apart intruders within seconds, is an impossible feat for ordinary animals.
Lancer: “…….Talk about loyal.”
It’s not, towards the instruments.
For the man is surely expressing it towards the unmistakable presence of the dogs, who’d give up everything for their master.
As he shrugs his shoulders, he starts walking through the hallways, again.
The mansion, is spacious anyway.
Time passed for a while until he finally arrives at the room that he is aiming for.
Rather than intently walking through the dark hallway, it was certainly quicker to move at high speed through spiritualization, but the man had not done it. He felt like walking with his own feet tonight, and besides, it he wanted the observe the state of the dogs for a bit.
On the doorknob of his objective room, the man places his hand on it――――
After opening the heavy door, he tries to forcibly knock as if he had realised it after the fact.
Misaya: “Don’t interrupt me.”
‘Ah――――’
‘Apparently, it seems I’ve really interrupted her.’
The man thinks after having caught sight of his Master who was sitting inside the wide room.
In the pale light, he instantly grasps the entire state of the inside room which was just as similarly gloomy as the hallway.
Without dozing off quietly, could she possibly be in the middle of her reading?
Misaya: “For some reason. Even my pet dogs, rarely disturb my reading.”
Coldly, his Master――――Misaya Reiroukan said to him.
She was a dazzling woman.
A woman full of wisdom.
A woman who was served by dogs.
And, more than anything, she was a woman who profoundly understood her own self as she contends for a life exchange.
While still seated on the sofa, suddenly she closes the book she held in her hands――――and places it close to the glass which was already on the other side of it, as Misaya’s eyes weakly glare at the man. A not very strong, but not very weak glare. Despite expressing a smile on her mouth, her glare is straightforward.
This woman who imposingly glares at himself who was even called a clan hunting dog by her, is she really the head of her family?
While being a bit joyful in his heart, the man awaits the words of the woman who is his Master.
As usual, does she have the same icy voice again tonight?
For a little while, similar to her first words, he could predictably hear their cold echo. He is probably aware of their bewitchingness, however regrettably the temperature is too low. There is no man who’d be invigorated by this. Or is it maybe a good time for the man to shiver in fear of her? There are also the type of highly-strung man, who’d stay put where they are, but…….
Misaya: “I didn’t intend to ask you to patrol the estate, Lancer.”
Lancer: “Well, ya see, it’s a persistent voluntary endeavour of mine. I don’t really need your thanks for it.”
Misaya: “Do you think before you speak!?”
The temperature of her voice gets even more lower.
The thorns encased in her glare, are as if they are changing into swords.
The man, Lancer, accepts her glare and words with a calm composure.
Lancer: “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
Shaking his fluttering hands――――
While also gazing at his young female Master, Lancer vaguely looks over at the thing over there.
In the deepest part of the room. There is something, behind the sofa.
There, is a single hollow room there.
It was a paranormal space that could warp a person’s field of vision as they softly, watch it. Actually, it’s probably not their field of vision being warped. Even if it is with the man’s, Lancer’s superhumanly keen vision, the entire distortion will not vanish. If it was a normal human then it would completely momentarily drive their sense of balance out of whack, that they wouldn’t be able to stand up properly. Because of the magic that had been performed on it, it must’ve had type of spell placed on it, so it wouldn’t even be all that strange if it could say, make a normal person die just by looking at it.
In the centre of the warped room, something entwined with spiritual thread is floating in it.
It is, a red “lance.”
A weapon that he himself had used on many battlefields once.
A Noble Phantasm that was given to him when he materialized as a Heroic Spirit.
A being that must become a trump card, there in this Second Holy Grail War.
It, without it being in his own hand, has been sealed due to his own Master’s whims like this.
He didn’t particularly plan on voicing his objections to her. He is aware that his Master’s choice, in challenging the Holy Grail War, actually makes sense as a reason, and more than anything, he highly values his Master’s resourcefulness. Likewise she is also an excellent Magus who possessed high amounts of prana, enough to possibly allow him who had materialized like this to walk around every night.
Furthermore, this woman is somewhere――――
Misaya: “Face off with Archer, next. Since he appears to be prowling about the city centre without a care in the world, you’ll probably find him right away if it’s you. I don’t mind if you kill him if you can kill.”
Lancer: “If I can kill him, right?”
Misaya: “These are my exact instructions. If you have heard them, then respond to them in kind.”
Lancer: “And Gáe Bolg?”
Misaya: “Not yet.”
Misaya takes up her glass again――――
Misaya: “I will not unbind the seal on your Noble Phantasm. I will decide on the timing for you to make use of it.”
As her voice, reaches an almost frigid degree, she suddenly stops.
Whether she is restraining herself or doing it unconsciously, Lancer is unable to know that, though he was anticipating that the former would probably be better for him.
A skilful woman. And, is the woman herself even aware of it?
Lancer: “’Kay ‘Kay.”
As he shrugs his shoulders, Lancer, unintentionally glances at the glass which the woman held.
A chunk of ice is left over in the glass. It, is still keeping its shape.
Which sounds, probably right. Tonight grows especially cold, and the warmth of the fireplace hasn’t yet entered the room. The ice will probably remain as ice, well for the time being now.
Though――――
It won’t keep until sunrise.
All of it will fleetingly melt down as time passes, such, is the thing called ice.
Originally Posted by SmartCable
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