My Fates Codex in Type-Moon

Arondight, also known as Lake Light Undisturbed.

Even after becoming a demonic sword, it still could not conceal its radiance.

The unlit underground training ground shimmered with sapphire-like light the instant the blade was drawn, as though it had sunk beneath a lake. The breathtaking sight left both grown men lost in a daze.

"Mercy, generosity, wisdom, honor, valor... Back then, I too passed the trials of the Five Virtues of Knighthood and obtained the Lady of the Lake's Sword from Lake Ceravy in Toussaint." Sakutsuki stroked the blade and sighed softly with nostalgia. "Unfortunately, I lost it again. This time, it was gone for good."

"You actually did something like that?! And what kind of place is Toussaint? An island where Mystery still remains?" Kariya was utterly shocked, only to be fiercely scorned by the other man.

"Of course it was fake. What era do you think this is? Mystery has already faded away, all right? Fairies, elves, and the like are all on the Reverse Side of the world. Where was I supposed to get a divine-forged sword?"

"Then why did you make it sound so real?!"

Sakutsuki merely smiled without answering. He returned Lake Light Undisturbed to Lancelot's scabbard, and the basement returned to its dim state.

Late at night, when all was quiet, was the perfect time for a story.

"Let us tell the story of a knight..." The young man's voice stretched on as he gently gathered up the history of the past.

It was the final Age of Romance on this planet, a twilight era when Mystery still lingered upon the islands, when magecraft, fairies, and sacred realms still remained.

Most legends of the Knights of the Round Table also came from that era—and the King of Knights still led her many knights across the land, driving away foreign tribes, protecting her people, leaving behind countless heroic deeds that people sang of.

There was once a knight from France. Having heard tales across the Channel of the Sword in the Stone and the ideal king, he was compared to Arthur by his subjects. Unwilling to accept it and driven by curiosity, he set foot upon Britannia.

In one battle, he fought alongside the Knight King and ultimately realized that the radiant king's strength did not come from physical stature, but from her utterly unwavering conviction.

Moved by the king's will, he willingly offered his loyalty and became one of the Round Table.

As a foreigner, this knight cared more about individuals than Britannia itself, and thus noticed the abnormalities between the king and the Round Table. He was deeply enraged by Tristan's claim that the king "did not understand people's hearts" when he departed, and came to an understanding with Queen Guinevere, who likewise wished to ease the king's burdens.

In the tenth year of King Arthur's reign, the illicit relationship between the knight and Guinevere was exposed.

In the battle to rescue the queen, the knight killed Agravain, accidentally killed Gawain's brother, and wounded Gawain, the Knight of the Sun. In the end, he left Britannia with the queen and returned to his European domain.

Even so, King Arthur still forgave him.

But in the end, Arthur's son Mordred launched a rebellion. When the knight received Gawain's dying letter pleading for aid and came from afar to support King Arthur in suppressing the revolt, he was already too late. The great battle between the king and her rebellious son had ended.

—The legend of Arthur, the Knight King, came to an end, and the kingdom crumbled apart.

After that, the knight spent the rest of his life in remorse.

When Sakutsuki finished his story, he discovered that two listeners had joined them at some point—black-haired Miyu and purple-haired Sakura.

For young girls, a knight's tale tinged with tragedy was undoubtedly the kind that moved them most deeply.

At some point, Kariya had already stepped before Berserker, his gaze filled with complexity as he looked at him.

"So that was why I summoned you..."

Berserker, King Arthur, and Queen Guinevere.

Kariya Matou, Tokiomi Tohsaka, and Aoi Zenjo.

How alike were they?

"▉▉▉▉..." The man wreathed in madness muttered, more beast than knight.

"If it were you, what would you do, Kariya?" Sakutsuki's question pulled Kariya's awareness back. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the complexity in them had faded, replaced by an unyielding determination that would not turn back until it hit a wall.

"I won't let the person I love fall into suffering. Tokiomi is wrong, so I'll correct him."

"Even if Aoi ultimately still won't choose you?"

Kariya clenched both hands into fists and turned his head away, conveying his resolve through silence.

And at the same time, keeping Sakutsuki from seeing the blazing ambition in his eyes.

The Holy Grail War, the Holy Grail...

Sakutsuki did not notice Kariya's abnormality. He merely patted his shoulder in encouragement, then walked over to Miyu and crouched down, meeting her amber eyes. "Have you tried them?"

"Yes." Miyu, dressed in a purple-themed magical girl outfit with an additional strap around her left thigh, nodded. "The Class Cards are functioning normally. They can all be used."

"Very good." Having received the answer he wanted, the golden-eyed young man smiled in satisfaction. "Since you came looking for me, there must be new developments in the Holy Grail War, right?"

"Yes." Miyu nodded, her little face calm. "Just last night, Assassin attempted to break through the Tohsaka Estate's barrier."

"And then?" The keyword had been triggered, and Kariya immediately became serious as he asked in a deep voice.

Miyu paused, and a rare trace of disbelief entered her voice.

"Then Assassin was killed."

Toussaint, the Five Virtues of Knighthood, and the Lady of the Lake's Sword—from "The Witcher 3."

Especially for the magi gathered in Fuyuki City, there were two places that drew their attention: the Matou Estate and the Tohsaka Estate, two equally imposing mansions standing atop the hills of Miyama Town.

Masters seeking the Holy Grail lived in those two Western-Style Houses. This was common knowledge. Thus, low-level familiars often appeared around them day and night recently for surveillance purposes. Naturally, the owners of the houses had anticipated this situation long ago, and had set up more than ten or twenty layers of detection and defensive barriers throughout their estates' gardens. From a magecraft perspective, they had turned their Western-Style Houses into military fortresses.

Of course, the Matou Estate had become an empty shell a year ago, while the true Master of the Matou family and his ally hid elsewhere in Miyama Town, likewise keeping watch over the opposing Tohsaka Estate.

Did the Masters' methods seem overly cautious to you, perhaps even cowardly?

Regarding that, aside from Sakutsuki, who was an anomaly by nature, the other magi would probably have considered it not shameful, but a point of pride.

Though magi wielded mysterious powers, they were fundamentally still human. Their bodies were not much stronger than ordinary people's. Cut their skin, and they bled. Kill them, and they died.

Servants were different. Even the weakest Servant possessed power far beyond humanity, and in the present-day world of Mystery, fewer than two dozen beings could confront a Servant head-on.

Therefore, the foremost task of the Holy Grail War was not victory, but preserving oneself—once dead, one had nothing.

Just like the earlier battle between the Rider team and Sakutsuki, wasn't Iskandar driven into such a sorry state by simple mana spheres precisely because he had to protect his Master?

Before they could ensure their own safety, the Masters would naturally hide carefully in the shadows and gather intelligence through every possible method.

Tokiomi Tohsaka used his disciple Kirei Kotomine and channels within the Holy Church. Kariya used the Matou family's influence and surveillance familiars. Kayneth and Webber used their own familiars. Sakutsuki... well, Sakutsuki basically did not need intelligence, since it had long been installed in his head.

But out of caution, he still needed to confirm it—would this tiny butterfly of his flap its wings in this war and stir up a tornado?

"Let's see what happened last night." Saying this, Sakutsuki gestured for Kariya to connect with the familiar and play the footage it had preserved from the previous night.

The tragedy happened in an instant.

It was a black shadow with no discernible form. By the time it entered the familiar's field of vision, it had already thrown several stones picked up at random, shattering the interconnected barriers around the Tohsaka Estate and breaking into the garden.

But the instant the shadow attempted to shake the foundation of the barrier, a gleaming spear flew down from directly above like lightning and pierced through its hand.

With Sakutsuki, a great magus who had inherited a thousand years of magecraft knowledge, assisting them, their familiar spying on the Tohsaka Estate was unexpectedly capable. Even the black shadow's shock and disbelief were reflected clearly in the familiar's eyes.

A magnificent golden figure stood atop the triangular gable roof of the Tohsaka Estate. That person possessed an awe-inspiring presence, his entire body glittering so brilliantly that even the starlit sky and the bright white moon seemed dim beside him.

"You crawling insect, who permitted you to raise your head?"

The golden figure questioned coldly. His blazing crimson eyes looked down upon Assassin, who lay prone on the ground. There was no contempt in his tone, only absolute indifference.

"How could an insect like you look directly upon this king? An insect should die like an insect, with its eyes upon the ground."

Countless gleaming weapons tore through the air as they descended upon Assassin.

The familiars observing outside the Tohsaka Estate could only watch helplessly as the first loser of the Fourth Holy Grail War, a Servant, was miserably destroyed without even receiving a chance to fight back.

The footage ended there.

Silence.

After Kariya Matou watched the slaughter, he fell into a long silence.

He asked himself: if it had been him, if it had been his Berserker, could they have killed Assassin so effortlessly?

No matter what, that had been a vessel of a Heroic Spirit—a Servant, an existence ordinary magi could not possibly resist.

Could he and his Servant defeat Tokiomi Tohsaka and that Golden Sparkle?

"Kariya, what do you think?" At that moment, Sakutsuki's tone sounded remarkably like Detective Dee's.

"If you little brat have something to say, just say it." Kariya shot him an annoyed glare.

"Then I'll give you the conclusion directly." Sakutsuki smiled. "This battle was fake. It was staged for us to see."

"Because I once fought that golden Servant, I know that guy isn't the type to obediently stay put."

Sakutsuki walked before everyone, his fingers moving as he replayed the footage from Assassin materializing to the appearance of the golden figure. This time, Miyu also spotted the issue.

"The time... was too short."

"That's right. The interval between Assassin materializing and the Tohsaka Servant launching his attack was too short. It was as if they had prepared in advance and were waiting for him to come knocking." Sakutsuki rubbed Miyu's head and smiled. "Don't forget that Assassin has the Class Skill called Presence Concealment. How could he be discovered so easily?"

"And if what Sakutsuki said is correct, then there is only one reason Tokiomi Tohsaka's Servant arrived so quickly." Kariya, gradually calming down, also noticed how full of holes this act was. "It means all of this had been prepared beforehand."

"I heard Assassin's Master has already entered the Holy Church to seek refuge. The overseer has declared that he is under protection."

"Hmph, what a fine plan." Kariya snorted. After a year of hellish training, he was no longer a novice in magecraft. "I don't know how he kept Assassin alive, but this way, the other Masters will definitely let down their guard, and they'll be able to steal intelligence from them with ease."

After all, the Holy Grail War was an intelligence war. Once Assassin, the one best suited to gathering information, went from the open to the shadows, the advantage this brought was self-evident.

What troubled Kariya even more was that if Tokiomi Tohsaka was willing to let Assassin stage such a show in his garden, then it meant he and Assassin's Master—Kirei Kotomine—were allies.

That made defeating Tokiomi Tohsaka even more difficult.

"Kirei Kotomine... is it?" Recalling that gloomy man in priestly robes whose fists struck like mountains, Sakutsuki curled his lips, making no effort to hide his killing intent.

Before that priest completely fell into depravity, Sakutsuki would personally send him to hell.

Just as the two men were each lost in their own thoughts, Sakura, who had been quietly standing nearby all this time, raised her hand and said timidly, "Um, Sakutsuki..."

"The flight you were waiting for has arrived."

His golden eyes immediately lit up. Even the others could clearly sense the anticipation in him. Smiling, Sakutsuki picked Sakura up and spun her around, then impatiently headed for the door. "Come on, Miyu. We're going shopping today!"

"Okay." Miyu nodded. Sakura, though somewhat envious beside her, sensibly said nothing.

After all, Sakutsuki had spent these past few days with her. She was already very satisfied.

"What does the flight have to do with shopping?" Though he had known about it long ago, Kariya could not help but complain. Then he called out loudly, "Be careful! And get back early!"

"Got it! I won't leave you without dinner!"

As Sakutsuki and Miyu set off, a chartered Volare Alitalia flight from Germany landed on the runway at F Airport, the closest airport to Fuyuki City.

The princess from Winter's Castle, along with a handsome knight, had come to visit this small city fraught with misfortune.

The mobile boarding stairs connected to the cabin door, which then opened.

A young woman dressed entirely in white stepped out of the cabin. A white fur hat, a white coat, a white knee-length skirt, paired with her snow-white skin and silver hair—she resembled a pure white princess who had stepped out of a fairy tale, perfectly suited to the depths of winter.

Irisviel, the "Master" from the Einzbern family, raised her head toward the gentle afternoon sunlight and revealed a relaxed smile.

Behind her followed a tall youth. Judging by appearance alone, the youth was no less striking than the woman before her. Her blonde hair was simply tied up, and her minimalist black suit gave her an air of competence and gallantry, complementing the pure white woman smiling at her.

They were like a princess and knight stepped out of a Western fairy tale. Three maids followed behind them, and wherever they went, they drew astonished looks from those around them.

If anyone could have heard their conversation, they would have been even more convinced that they were strange, pure beings isolated from the modern world.

"I'm very happy to be traveling alone with Saber. No matter how much I look at you, I never get tired of it."

"Irisviel, is something strange?"

"It's nothing. Don't mind it."

"...Whenever you smile like that, it means there must be some hidden meaning. I hope you'll honestly tell me what it is."

"I was thinking that your inability to turn into spirit form is not entirely a bad thing. Because you can't become a spirit, I get to enjoy choosing clothes for you."

"..."

Artoria, who was called Saber, sighed. The inability to assume spirit form was a serious flaw; even being harshly scolded by her Master would not have been surprising. Having someone like that flaw was already not something Saber wanted, and now she had to warn her Master not to joke about it. It was completely backwards.

"Irisviel, can this outfit of mine really blend in with people of this era?"