Those who saw the creature or learned of its existence by detecting its magical energy reacted in several different manners.
However, while some considered it a problem that could be saved for later, none of them could completely ignore it.
They realized something "extraneous" brought to the land.
Something equal in rank to a Heroic Spirit manifested.
The team closest to it at the moment of its birth was Saber Richard the Lionheart and his Master Ayaka.
"A-aaaaah... No... NO..."
In face of the brutality she just witnessed, Ayaka fell to her knees, covering her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at the blown head of the young man's corpse.
"..."
While Ayaka screamed in rejection of that reality, a different emotion welled up in her heart.
(It happened again. Someone died because I stood there doing nothing. Again.)
She felt this emotion akin to resignation, and the fretfulness and fear that formed to hide that under.
When confronted with the fact that the man she just met suddenly died before her eyes, she was assailed by several different emotions. So many that another version of herself showed up as a mental defense reaction to get her to calm down.
(Tell me, why was he killed?)
(He seemed like he knew me... But I don't know him.)
(Wouldn't that because I am a Master.)
(Then you mean he's also a Master? That's why he was killed?)
(In that case, who is the next target?)
"...!"
Having immediately understood the situation, Ayaka raised her head and tried to stand up.
She was still startled and unable to put strength in her legs. The shiver in her spine consumed all other sensations.
Before she noticed it, Saber was embracing her.
He carried her straight to a nearby building. Inside, he placed Ayaka back on the ground, at a spot that wouldn't be visible from any of the surrounding buildings.
"Ayaka. Are you alright?"
"...!"
(Right. Now is not the time to be shaking.)
"Yeah, thank you."
What stopped her trembling was her memory of the contract she formalized with Saber.
ー"Answer me. Are you my Master?"
She had answered Saber's question.
Not with the formal response nor with anything clever.
Just a nod.
She simply moved her chin down. No other gesture could have been simpler. And yet, the amount of resolve contained in this gesture made it feel like the first time she took action in her life, as far as she could remember.
(Becoming a Master was a path I chose of my own will.)
With this reconfirmation, she regained the resolve she had at the moment of her choice.
Her shaking stopped and her loaded scream sunk back to the depths of her throat.
She still didn't have any clear idea of what the relationship between a Master and a Servant was like, but she knew that her whining about how she was an outsider roped into the conflict wouldn't cut it anymore.
She figured out that she wouldn't be able to escape the spiral of fate no matter what.
She would be pressured into making a choice, whether she wanted it or not. Her life was being targeted by someone she couldn't reason with.
But she wasn't alone.
If she let herself be crushed without a fight, Saber would be dust.
(I can't let that happen. I haven't repaid anything I owe to this King... No, this isn't about owing him. I'm doing what I want because I want it.)
She was thrown into a life-staking battle when she couldn't find a solid answer to the question of "why am I alive?".
If she wanted to surmount her grievances, if she wanted to walk side by side with Saber, this uninhibited busybody who was nothing like her, she couldn't run away screaming.
Her whole body regained strength as her blood started circulating again and she recovered her lost sensations.
She didn't know if this stir all over her body was that "magical energy" she heard so much of or pure bravado.
(Besides... It's not the first time someone I know dies before my eyes...)
After that out-of-place self-derisive thought, she was hit with confusion.
(Wait...?
Who died the first time again...? No, now is not the time to think about it.)
A stir formed in Ayaka's heart, but she didn't give it enough attention that it would prevent her from standing up.
And then she assessed her situation to plan the next step.
"..."
A tragedy occurred less than a minute ago. Flashbacks to the color and smell of the blood left her nauseated, but she pushed it back down and questioned Saber about the situation.
"What happened?"
"A sniper attack. We're surrounded by numerous shooters. Normal bullets don't work on us Heroic Spirits, so they'll be aiming for Masters."
"Huh? You mean... that wasn't a Heroic Spirit attack? It was all guns?"
Ayaka gulped and ran her eyes across her surroundings.
She didn't think she would find any assailants, much less the snipers, but she couldn't go without checking.
"The guy who talked me is..."
The Holy Grail War was a bloodshed without rules. She could believe that enemies would attack in broad daylight in a populated district.
Saber told her about the spirit of arcane concealment, but the same Saber responding to a TV interview didn't make it look like this law was taken seriously. The intensity of the battle in front of the hospital told her everything she needed to know about the safety of the masses in the city.
"I see... If they kill people with normal guns, that would even touch that arcane concealment thing."
"That's the idea. There should be a precedent set for that in past Holy Grail Wars. Well, any mage prioritizing efficiency would endorse that thought. And that's why you need a Servant."
She knew the city was ridden with armed mercenaries due to Sigma and the group surveilling the mansion in the marsh. In any other situation, John's squad of policemen with swords and spears would be a more concerning image, but when the firearms are trained on her, who can blame her for not thinking anywhere was safe?
With a chill running down her spine, Ayaka questioned Saber.
"So, they could blow this whole building up with a bomb if that's what it takes?"
"Perhaps. If killing was all that mattered, modern science has those missiles and chemical weapons to do the job. But one reason not to use them is their potential to destroy the city's ritualistic foundations. In other words, if the enemy didn't mind botching the ritual, they could blow a hydrogen bomb on the city and call it a day. This means they're trying to win the ritual and, well, even then, one or two buildings is not enough of a loss to get them to think twice."
After this whole preamble, Saber looked at Ayaka with a quite serious expression to deliver the final part.
"A colosseum full of people would be
not a big deal for them."
"Gh... This is a literal war."
With a snide comment to lighten the burden of reality, Ayaka calmed down her mind and asked Saber the next question.
"Do you know what happened to his body?"
The boy knew something about her. More precisely, he knew about Sajou Ayaka, a girl with the same name and face as her.
In a mix of a wish for any crumbles of information she could get and the guilt from potentially getting the boy shot because he came to see her, Ayaka wanted to at least learn his name.
But with a sullen expression, Saber shifted his attention to the entrance he came from.
"? What's wrong?"
"Nothing... I was curious about the same thing, actually... Loxley told me the boy got up after the shots..."
"What...?"
Loxley was the name of one of the companions Saber carried as part of his Noble Phantasm.
He received a telepathic report, but Ayaka couldn't understand the meaning behind it.
"Huh, but he got shot in the head... Did he survive? Don't tell me magecraft can do that?"
"I can make quite a few guesses... provided I was right in assuming he wasn't a Heroic Spirit."
Saber listed his hypothesis, raising one finger at a time to count them.
"The first is that an illusion or a familiar took the bullets instead of him. That is possible, but if it's true, there's no point in him getting up immediately. The second is that he used the power of magecraft to revive his blown head... In the words of advisers more well-versed in magecraft, it'd take a considerably powerful Magic Crest or an arcanum close to magic, but it's not impossible to bring someone nominally 'back from the dead'. Let's keep this one in mind for later. Third. He's something other than a person. Perhaps a high-level vampire or elemental, a mythical being from the Inner Sea of the Planet, or a Foreigner from beyond the stars. If that's the case, things won't be pretty."
"How bad are we talking here?"
"His presence would be a bigger concern than the arcane concealment. Non-humans care about toppling a human city as much we would care about toppling a sand castle."
Saber had a complex expression, mixing drive and excitement with fear and curiosity as he was reminded of "something" he saw in the past.
But receiving a further report, he turned to Ayaka with a stern expression.
"The boy's shooters were... already eliminated."
"What do you mean, eliminated?"
Ayaka knew exactly what the word meant, but the situation was hard to swallow.
"Ayaka, what's our plan? I personally would like to continue the battle, but without knowing if he's an enemy or an ally, I recommend prioritizing your safety. You're still fine in terms of magical energy, but your mental exhaustion could hamper our continued battle capabilities."
Saber's instincts let him pull through multiple battlefields and family conspiracy.
And those instincts were telling that the presence outside the building was more dangerous than the average Heroic Spirit.
"It's possible this building will already be flattened by the time we decide if he's an enemy or an ally."
X X
The ones standing second closest to the incident were the policemen who returned from the Reality Marble together with Ayaka.
A few minutes earlier.
John and Vera heard the air razing and the asphalt shattering, and immediately realized it was a sniper attack.
They looked around and found Flat bleeding from the chest not too far away from them.
Next, they saw the moment Flat's head burst. Without waiting for Vera's orders, the group hid behind the nearby cars and buildings.
"What about Ayaka Sajou? Oh, it's fine, Saber will protect her."
John worried about Ayaka since she was a civilian but to his relief, he saw Saber carrying her away, raising walls of water along the way. At the same time, indescribable anger and sorrow dominated his brain.
(Shit, why Flat Escardos... Who did this?! Another Master?!)
His first suspect for the sniper was a member of the Scladio Family, Bazdilot Cordelion's team.
But they were on Central Avenue.
Not only it's blocked off to prevent attacks on the police, but it's also directly under the jurisdiction of the Grail War's management.
(It couldn't be someone from management, could it? Does the Chief know anything?)
Some of his teammates had the long-range Noble Phantasm necessary to be the sniper, but what he saw looked more like a physical shot from a regular gun than a Noble Phantasm.
(Then who did this?)
He couldn't take his time to speculate.
Vera was trying to call the chief, but the situation changed again before she could.
They saw movement close to their ally's destroyed head.
An eldritch monster was born next to Flat Escardos, almost ridding everyone who saw it of their sanity, and jumped to the nearby buildings.
It was Heroic Spirit Jack the Ripper's last stand.
However, the Heroic Spirit let his emotions get the better of him and overexerted his power, crumbling to light dust before he could reach the building's rooftop.
His magical energy path was severed, so he couldn't maintain his form.
They didn't know if he was completely terminated or forced into spirit form.
Either way, with his Master dead, he was bound to die out unless he formed a new contract.
John's team only had one brief conversation with the boy in the church, but that alone gave them enough of an understanding of who Flat Escardos was.
His personality was not like a mage's, but it was far from an ordinary person's either. Regardless, they understood that he was not a bad guy.
Another factor to consider is that, although they were a group of mages, their unique position as magecraft-practicing police officers gave them values very separate from the Clock Tower norm.
ー"You are justice."
That's what their Chief declared when the Holy Grail War started. Those words circulated their bodies like blessings and curses.
That made it difficult for them to accept the sight of their ally, a very young man, losing his life like it was nothing.
The members of Clan Calatin had the resolve to put down the child Kuruoka Tsubaki if that was what justice demanded but when this brutal murder happened without giving them time to gather any form of resolve, they were furious.
Except said fury turned into confusion the next second.
"What...?"
John wasn't the only one to say it.
Vera opened her eyes wide and hung up her call before connecting with the Chief.
The other policemen also reacted with a varied range of bewilderment.
After all, when it looked like Flat Escardos's head was blown off, his body was encased in shadow, only to stand up the next second, with its lost head recovered.
For an instant, they were reminded of the "mud" worn by the bowman they fought, but they knew it was something else.
The "mud" they saw was a dark red that burned all to cinders. And the Kuruoka Tsubaki Servant that swallowed them later was a chilly gloom that dragged all inside it.
In contrast, what enveloped Flat was a perfect hollow.
A pure jet-black, seemingly sucking all light in. This black started converging to the bullet holes in Flat's abdomen until a person appeared deep in the hollow's interior.
Upon processing the image of the individual inside the hollow, many policemen screamed. Even John and Vera were covered in cold sweat.
They knew that wasn't Flat Escardos.
That it wasn't even human.
X X
The highest floor of Crystal Hill
Tine Chelc could feel the creature's birth. She mistakenly assumed the sensation was poison being poured all over her body, but despite this misunderstanding, she didn't slow down the magecraft preserving her Servant, Gilgamesh's body.
That's because she knew that if she lost focus for one instant, the Saint Graph body in front of her would crumble.
She kept hearing confused voices from her tribe subordinates gathered at the window to see what was happening outside.
Regardless, Tine wouldn't move.
Next, her subordinates' voices were filled with fear and panic.
"What's that?"
"A monster."
They exchanged dubious words across the suite room.
Despite the numerous yells, all too vague to be the words of mages, she didn't think her subordinates went crazy.
Her magecraft drew energy from the land's dragonvein.
Therefore, she had a clear feel for what was happening.
Something not of this world was born on the land.
It was the advent of something beyond reason, with a power that wasn't that of a mage or a Heroic Spirit.
However, aware of all that, she didn't take her hands off her magecraft.
This signified that what was happening was
simply trivial to her.
While she poured her magical energy, she continuously questioned her own way of life.
What did she lack?
What must she do?
Who is Tine Chelc?
The regretful girl searched for answers.
Gilgamesh.
What would make her worthy of being this exceptional Heroic Spirit's Master?
What would make her worthy of being the great Hero King's subject?
X X
West Snowfield, forest region
"..."
The one inhabiting Filia's body turned around, letting her silver hair flutter beautiful like a winter lake's surface.
She looked in the city's direction. Haruri, Berserker Huwawa's Master, asked her about it.
"What happened?"
"Hm, nothing huge."
She tried to say it casually but just hearing her words already agitated the magical energy in Haruri's body.
She was looking at a homunculus hosting a Saint Graph claimed to be Uruk's god of fertility Ishtar.
To be more exact, the personality in her body was a "blessing" the goddess Ishtar left in the world, but those details made no difference to Haruri. Talking to her was the same as talking to Ishtar's Divine Spirit.
Without paying much attention to Haruri, the homunculus possessed by the Divine Spirit's echo looked at the tall Crystal Hill at the center of the city and let out an intrigued mutter.
"Heh. So this kind of thing can be born even in this era."
"?"
"Well, whatever. For now, I still don't need to decide if I should bless its birth or eliminate it. Getting things ready for Gugalanna's arrival is the bigger priority! It's boring work, but I can't go back on my word after I declared to him that I wouldn't lay a finger on the two before we were together."
The Divine-possessed was interested, but changed subjects, indicating she would deal with it later.
Her words puzzled Haruri.
("The two"? She probably means those two people she mentioned a while ago as "the causes of her manifestation in this place". And I think I already saw one of them, that Archer in golden armor from the battle in front of the hospital. But Huwawa already killed the Archer. What does she mean by "not laying a finger on the two" when she already got rid of one? I can't understand the mind of a Divine Spirit. Is she glitching, or...)
"That's a pretty nice land. It's going to waste with that bunch of junk on it, so I gotta show how to use it more effectively!"
Her next words sounded like a joke, but the Divine Spirit voice being used to deliver them shifted the tone to that of a divine message being relayed through an Oracle.
"I'm gonna make this land
into the new Mount Ebih!"
"Excuse me?"
Haruri couldn't help blurting out a reaction despite Fillia/Ishtar's overwhelmingly arcane voice.
(Mount Ebih... like the Jabal Hamrin from the Zagros Mountains? The one goddess Ishtar destroyed in Enheduanna's epics?)
In response to Haruri's confusion, the beautiful homunculus showed a smile loaded with divinity, containing a charm the common people were unable to resist.
It was her way of emphasizing she was not joking.
"I'm going to build a temple here before my boy Gugalanna arrives... I'm counting on your help!"
X X
Snowfield's industrial district, meat factory
"..."
A meat factory is being used as a workshop for Bazdilot's team.
Large chunks of it were destroyed by Haruri's Berserker Servant and patched together by Prelati's illusions, but the process to restore its functionality without illusions made a lot of progress in the past 24 hours.
During it, the Archer in spirit form, known as Alcides, manifested in front of Bazdilot, who was amidst the process of absorbing magical crystals to interact with the Mud.
"What?", Bazdilot kept his question at the minimal word count.
"The mage who outwitted me... The man probably from a land related to me,
he seems to have flipped inside-out."
"Is that a problem?"
"I won't know until I see it. But judging by the quality of his presence... he might be one, not for us but for humanity."
Bazdilot responded to Alcides's dispassionate words without slowing down his procedure or even looking in his Servant's direction.
"Then do what you think is necessary."
After giving an equally dispassionate answer, Bazdilot regurgitated his magical energy and emotions to the interior of the rampaging Mud trying to corrode him from the inside.
It was as if he was trying to raise this pack of human malice as a cherished son.
"The enemy of our enemy isn't always our friend, but the more failures we can exploit, the better."
X X
North Snowfield, strath
"Are you okay, Master?", said Rider Hippolyte in a concerned tone.
Through the magical energy link that connects Masters and Servants, she could feel her Master intensely unsettled.
She didn't ask why.
That was because she already had a pretty good idea of their reason.
A natural workshop was built by altering the very land and space in part of the ravine.
Inside it, one could see a broad image of what was happening outside. Nonetheless, the space was sheltered from all external interference, as it was highly removed from the world.
While she was impressed by how advanced the technique was, Hippolyte braced herself and focused her attention on the cause of her Master's disarray: the otherworldly presence that appeared in the city.
"I can go whenever you're ready. I'm here as a Servant, but even if I were here as the queen of the Amazons, I still wouldn't hesitate to risk my life for the sake of a friend and equal."
"Oh, I'm fine... Sorry for worrying you, Rider."
Deep inside the workshop,
a young man's voice reverbed.
Hippolyte believed his words and didn't pry any further.
Her Master was trustworthy.
There was one thing she was sure about, as a Servant, as the queen of the Amazons, and as Hippolyte the individual: she was lucky to have what was probably the best Master in this Grail War.
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Originally Posted by Arashi_Leonhart
