The distant past
Many paths lead to this mausoleum.
Although looking at their destination, one could say all paths were the same.
Some called the sacred grounds of the mountain a belfry blessing the natural end of life, while others called it the
threshold of the underworld.
It's the embodiment of a concept all those born in this world will eventually reach, yet at the same time, it's a land that cannot be walked to lest one crosses a ravine men avoid.
The Mausoleum of Azrael
Among those who actually set foot on this mountain, very few reached
the end and the beginning at its summit.
It goes beyond a matter of reaching it or not. Most in the transient world of the living don't even know whether or not the temple is real.
Because reaching that place means ending your life in this world.
It's possible to perish to the perils of the path.
But that's not the essence of the matter.
Because one's life is only truly lost if one arrives at the place unharmed.
Because the recompense granted to those who arrive at the Mausoleum is a bell blessing the literal end of their natural lives. A ring of the evening bell and a glimmer of a blade that invites peaceful rest.
At all times, only one person remains in this resting place of the spirits.
An
old man with no face. It's impossible to determine if he remains there alive or remains there after death.
The announcer of death, which the assassin leaders known as Hassan-i-Sabbah respect and revere above any other man.
Cursed Arm.
Intoxicated Smoke.
Serenity.
Shadow Peeler.
Quaking Pipe.
Hundred Personas.
Throughout every generation, the leaders of the Order of Assassins had unique epithets and feats of assassination correspondent with those names.
The Old Man of the Mountain was the only one with no such name. He could be considered the Order's originator and its very concept.
An unreachable star, unseen regulation, and unavoidable
executioner to the eighteen leaders who followed him.
In every generation, the Hassan-i-Sabbah's degradation would not be tolerated.
At the moment that those permitted to stray from morality drown in human pleasure, great causes are corrupted into personal desires and become contrary to the dogmas.
And because this was intolerable, the Old Man appeared to the Hassans carrying the evening bell.
To some, due to age and degradation dulling their assassination feats.
To some, due to the corruption of desire consuming them.
To invite them to the everlasting darkness with his blade of demise, much like demise itself eventually appears before all.
A proper leader of the Order of Assassins needs to dedicate all they have to the dogmas and chain their egos under the Hassan name.
When, for any reason, they become unable to comply with this, that is the moment their lives end.
There's no need for them to be in the mausoleum. Wherever they go, the Old Man will be standing behind the Hassan that was living their life wrong.
It's as if the true Mausoleum of Azrael is wherever the Old Man is.
Thus, although all leaders of the Order of Assassins heard about the spiritual mausoleum, barely any of them ever walked to it, and the few who did went to offer their heads because they could sense their part was done.
But in the unending flow of time, it's possible for someone to defy the strong crosswinds of reason.
The hollowed figure was
not like the others.
A shadow crossed the misty ravine of the arid region like a heat haze.
While he was certainly alive, he was clad in an aura that suggested he stepped on the frontier between the transient world and the underworld, blending in with both sides. This figure simply advanced, advanced, advanced, advanced...
After overcoming many trials and hardships, the shadow arrived at the Mausoleum.
The figure finally reached the
old man with no face that guarded the mausoleum.
Basking in the presence of the Old Man who resembled death embodied, all the figure did was proclaim words of respect for that venerable place.
For this figure, who wasn't an assassin, let alone a leader of the Order,
life ended without him ever getting to hear the evening bell.
And then time flowed its course.
200 years passed. 500 years passed. Enough years passed for the shadow of the great tree to disappear without a trace.
Enough time for the shadow of doom to leave a burn mark on the world.
X X
A few days ago
"What's your wish for the Holy Grail, shadow Assassin?", asked the Master who contracted the shadow in this Holy Grail War in the interstice between truth and falsehood.
He understood perfectly well that his Servant was always untalkative.
But this Master of the shadow made this his first question after they tied the contract. An attempt to understand at least the bare minimum about his own Servant's nature—or to find his weaknesses.
In a normal Holy Grail War, most Heroic Spirits are called because they have some wish the Holy Grail may grant.
The shadow's Master's goal is to more effectively know his partner by understanding the central reason for his presence.
The shadow manifested as Assassin—this Heroic Spirit going by the name Hassan-i-Sabbah is someone seen as abnormal in the eyes of a Master who is knowledgeable about the Holy Grail War.
After all, his own Master's eyes can't see his amount of magical energy, let alone his physical abilities.
His choice of words showed he was blatantly testing his Master, and one wrong response could easily lead to him being beheaded in his sleep.
The Master had the option to spend Command Spells to limit the Servant's movements, but the Servant was sinister enough to make the Master believe that binding this Heroic Spirit through Command Spells required being ready to lose everything.
There could not be even a hint of a mistake in the command's content.
(This Heroic Spirit doesn't have a hint of fear for his erasure... his second death.)
That's the only thing he understood since his contract.
That's why it felt so sinister.
What is someone without the fear of death, someone who can go out without regrets, doing here?
At that stage, he still didn't have enough information to know if he should be using the Heroic Spirit or preparing for its insurrection.
So even though the Servant would see through the calculated self-interest in the question, the Master still chose to ask.
"Can you tell me? If your wish is incompatible with mine, I know how to make us reach a fair compromise."
Despite the Master adding sincere-sounding words to his question, the shadow said nothing.
The Master could only hear noises coming from the monitor of the computer he was looking at as subliminal letters raced across the borders of the screen.
As if the shadow despised saying such words out loud.
--The wish granter exists not in my teachings--
"...?"
--My path has no need for it, as it is corrupt from inception, and therefore I am here.--
The flickering words among the strings of letters sounded like a riddle. He made a point to use the term "wish granter, which is practically a token function to the ritual. It felt as if he was intentionally avoiding the term "Holy Grail".
The shadow simply left the following string of letters and melded his presence into the city's darkness without waiting for further words from his Master.
--The light of thy wish granter does not reach me, and for all eternity, I who am shadow shan't touch it.--
And then the shadow slipped into the darkness of the Holy Grail War.
Equally measuring the shadows of all those illuminated by the Holy Grail.
Even now that the shadow was summoned as a Heroic Spirit, his consciousness remained the same.
The "individual" here is merely a shadow of the Old Man cast by a glimmer.
The glimmer of the blade that cut his head off.
He was not the Old Man of the Mountain, but instead a shadow that only imitated his will.
X X
Back to the present.
The shadow remained still, submerged in Snowfield's forest, now turn into a hellscape centered around the trio of the Mesopotamian goddess, her divine beast, and her demonic beast.
To verify whether or not his role was over.
Thinking that if this is the end of the world, returning to the perpetual night alongside the rest of Human Order is also part of his role.
However—the shadow's eyes reflected the image of one Assassin.
One seeker of the truth, struggling through the path she believed in, without an answer.
X X
Coalsman Special Corrections Center
"How is the progress with the communication cuts?", said Faldeus.
"On schedule. The city's telephone tower will cut off both the civilian and military lines soon. We're fully ready to jam all wireless transmissions, except the ones using magecraft.", his subordinate Aludra reported.
"The hurricane knocked down the telephone tower. Neat enough of a cover story. I was starting to feel sorry for the gas company after pushing the blame on them so, so many times.", Faldeus shrugged.
"How do we proceed with the
THORN and
BADGER units dispatched to the marsh and desert areas?", Aludra dispassionately asked.
"Ask them to remain on standby. They are disposable assets, and any thoughtless movements will make them notice that.
There's not much low-end spellcasters and mercenaries can do in this situation."
X X
West Snowfield, Neo Ishtar Temple
Watching the remains of what once were modern weapons falling from the sky, the Assassin with no name forced a groan out of her throat.
"Quite impressive... you heretical power incarnate!"
The bloodsucking hellspawn she was chasing was before her, and even then this fully stole her attention away from her enemy, although only for an instant.
But the same is true for the enemy in question—her hematophage summoner Jester Karture. Despite the lengths of his obsession, Assassin was gone from all his sensations for an instant.
No, it'd be more accurate to say that their attention and sensations were forcibly drawn.
What happened the moment the alleged goddess on the temple exerted her power went much beyond catching Assassin and the vampire's attention. They could feel their whole soul being dominated.
She couldn't feel her feet. She was suddenly thrown into a zero-gravity darkness. Her common sense was being rewritten to tell her that the temple before her eyes was the only thing that existed. Perhaps she could only remain conscious through this whole process due to her powerful faith and mental strength.
That's how much overwhelming power—or perhaps the concept called "beauty"—filled the the solemn edifice in front of her. That was the Neo Ishtar Temple.
Bring reverence and adoration.
The azure sky is present every hour.
Bring sacrilege and profanation.
Words are meaningless before true power,
they fade to nothing with a thundershower.
Live ignorantly. Search is damnation.
The mad whirlwinds shall permit all.
The azure sky shall forbid all.
Since, in the sky's veil, every star
reflects the image of goddess Ishtar,
the season of harvest comes at last.
Lives hatched out of the land here,
return to their place in the celestial sphere.
Greens and grain will be moist by the planet's shed tears.
Reverence to the seas billowing with ire.
Adoration to the crops set afire.
From the distant Venus pours fair might,
with equal parts glory and ruin to raise this land right.
Our Ishtar shall be the last god granting creation her blessing.
She will permit everything and she will punish everything.
She is the goddess of love, therefore, harvest.
The upcoming season will be the best.
Bring reverence and adoration.
Bring sacrilege and profanation.
A form of ritualistic prayer could be heard everywhere around the Temple.
Words announcing the coming of a new era flowed out of the mouth of Haruri, now the head priestess of the Neo Ishtar Temple.
The announcement wasn't directed to anyone. Haruri was telling her own heart that.
The scene she saw was a scene of knowledge being presented to the fools opposing the goddess. Knowledge that modern weapons are rendered powerless by Ishtar's charm. Knowledge of how pathetically they drop to the ground.
And the goddess Haruri worshipped was above the temple.
Ishtar, advened in the vessel named Filia, imposingly lorded over the lands, indicating she no longer had a care in the world for Jester and Assassin standing next to her.
"Fine."
And then she delivered her divine proclamation. Not only to Jester and Assassin, but to all mages and Heroic Spirits participating in the Holy Grail War, or perhaps to all people living in Snowfield—no, to everything on the planet's Texture, not limited to categories of land and mankind.
"
You have permission to kneel."
A most arrogant sentence.
Nonetheless, from a powerful voice.
The unreasonable sentence runs to the lands like an immutable truth.
Harvest.
Her mere presence manifests bountiful crops to the world.
The forest's air was saturated.
As if everything was completed. Concluded.
The goddess in the forest generated a unique air that induced ecstasy and resignation.
The temple to her worship increased her graces, turning them into winds filled with a feeling that the end of times has come. The winds began to travel across the world.
The winds were carried by the divine beast standing on the west side of the city: the Bull of Heaven.
The now-completed temple became the lynchpin for a new world order. It seemed unavoidable that the Singularity created in this forest would corrode the world.
But it will be met with some resistance.
Will this pushback come from the power of self-purification or from the collective struggle of the doomed weak? The answer is not yet clear.
One fragment of the pushback was in the marsh region on the opposite side of Snowfield, letting out an idiotic scream.
X X
"HYAAAAaaaAAAAAaaaAAAAAA"
Dull screams reverbed on Snowfield's marsh region.
"Are you okay, Ayaka? We can still go on foot if you can't handle it...!"
"I'm f-f-f-f-f-fine. We gotta h-hurry!"
The reason for Ayaka Sajou's panicked yells is that she was heading north of the city by horse.
She rode clinging to Saber's back, advancing through the boggy grounds of the marsh area at extraordinary speeds.
The horse, presumably a power borrowed from one of the Saint Graphs that Saber called "his retinues", barely didn't sway like a normal horse would.
The only cause for Ayaka's screams was moving at speeds she never experienced before, but she still never told him to slow down.
It had gotten to a point where even someone as unknowledgeable about magecraft as her could detect the abnormality in the city.
If she looked west, she could see an unmoving wall of clouds so dense it looked like there was no world beyond it, and the news reported abnormal phenomena all over the world, most notably in the Arctic.
To top it off, she was visited by a Servant she never interacted with before, and invited by her Master to fight in a united front.
A normal mage would have considered a trap, but this didn't even cross Ayaka's mind.
But she's a complete amateur and wouldn't have been able to hold her base if that really was a siege.
Saber would have offered a plan if she asked but he was clearly invested in this idea of a united front. Ayaka found no reason to oppose him, and more relevantly to her decision, she didn't get the impression that this visiting "Rider" was a dangerous woman.
She considered her a lot more trustworthy than any of the other Heroic Spirits she saw in front of the hospital or the demonic beasts she met in the dream.
Ayaka had, of course, some level of caution, not taking the visitor's every word at face value.
Clinging tight to Saber, she took a peek at the Rider's horse running next to hers.
It kept up with the extraordinary speed of Saber's horse. If anything, it was Saber's horse that seemed to be exerting itself more.
Since she mentioned her Rider Saint Graph, Ayaka arrived at the elementary conclusion she's called Rider because she was really good at riding.
In turn, Saber expressed his admiration for Rider.
"Amazing! And here I thought I was a good rider. To think you can reach these speeds without even stirrups or a saddle!"
"I'm a little abashed with all the sincere admiration, but thank you. My tribe prides itself in treating horses as comrades.", answered Rider, looking at the Heroic Spirit with curious eyes as he spoke his praise with boyish honesty.
Rider was happy that her horse gained more recognition than herself.
"Woah woah, are you should be saying things that hint at your True Name?"
"It's not a problem. You won't see me naming myself for no reason, but I do have my Master's permission to disclose my True Name. Besides... the
enemies already know who I am."
"Your enemies? The people who called this tremendous hurricane here?", said Saber, looking west.
"Those are not
enemies. They're
obstacles our united front must remove.", Rider denied. She closed her eyes before continuing. "The only
enemies in my Master's eyes are the masterminds who arranged this Grail War."
Saber was intrigued by her choice of words being "in my Master's eyes" instead of "in my eyes", but chose not to press the statement.
Because his greatest interest was the Holy Grail War he must fight, not other people's personal battles.
"Gotcha! I wish you good luck in your battle, be it as my enemy or as my ally!"
Seeing Saber running by her side, making such declarations with a smile on his face, got Hippolyte thinking.
(This man... he may sometimes seem scatterbrained... but he must have been a general or a monarch. I guess he seems this way because of his personality that lives only for the moment.)
This is their first time talking, but Hippolyte had seen Saber before.
She only watched from afar as Saber battled the golden king. Although he lost, he provided an incredible sword fight.
He had the eyes of a general who keeps track of everything around him, not just the warriors.
It did feel like he fought always executing the first idea to come to his mind, but in every choice he made, he picked the best path and ran through it with what seemed to be divine speed on his legs.
She surmised that either his eyes were set on long-term strategies or that he worked closely together with a tactician doing it in his stead, but either way, he dominated a vast area.
(If he becomes an enemy, he'll be a fearsome one.)
She no longer sought the Holy Grail.
There was no point in doing so.
Since the person she was going to communicate her will to with her wish is also manifested in this Grail War, in a form dedicated to revenge.
(Do this Saber and Master even know that the Heroic Spirits called here are sacrifices to fill up the wish granter?)
That's when Hippolyte turned her eyes to Saber's Master.
She had the appearance of a woman somewhere between her late teens and early twenties.
Hippolyte recognized that figuring out what she was was beyond her capabilities.
(Her presence... is she even
human?)
After some hesitation, she concluded she didn't need to try to find out more, so she faced forward.
That's because she knew they were about to leave the marsh region and to the straths.
(My Masters will have a much more reliable answer than mine.)
"We're almost there. Remember, we have no intention of antagonizing you. Whether this will remain true after our united front is over will depend on your objectives, but at the very least... WHAT?!"
Hippolyte interrupted her sentence and looked at the city.
Far in the distance, she could see smoke coming out of the industrial district.
From the source of the smoke, the presence of her
enemy intensified.
His abnormal presence was transfigured, even more ominous than it was the last time she confronted him, and with magical energy on a higher order of magnitude.
Perhaps sensing the same presence, Saber looked in the same direction and yelled.
"Whoa, something awesome's happening over there, huh!"
The start of the battle wasn't going to wait for Saber and Ayaka to join Hippolyte's Masters.
The herald of this chaos was the Noble Phantasm of the Archer exacting revenge on the gods.
Originally Posted by FSF 5, Chapter 14: Gold and Lions I
Though abandoned, forgotten, and scorned as out-of-date dolls, they continue to carry out their mission, unchanged from the time they were designed.
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