Although she knew perfectly well that she had no real connection to Artoria Pendragon.
Since she was also "Morgan," she had to see the Holy Sword of King Arthur from Proper Human History for herself.
"Be honored, Artoria. I mean it."
Morgan raised her left hand high, white light condensed with immense magical power shining brightly.
No Entry
Lancer, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, was feeling rather frustrated.
He had spent the entire day strolling through the streets of Fuyuki City, releasing the aura of a Servant. Yet even after night fell, not a single Servant had answered the silent challenge Lancer had issued.
He had even expected nighttime to be when the various participants in the Holy Grail War would clash, so he had deliberately chosen the bayside warehouse district in northern Fuyuki City.
His Master, who intended to meet the enemy here, had also set up a barrier around the area to prevent unrelated people from wandering in.
But... not a single person had come.
Just as Diarmuid began to think he would not be able to fight an enemy Servant tonight, an explosion sounded from the sea near the seaside park.
It was followed by powerful magical energy, along with the presence of Servants.
It seemed that some Servants had begun fighting before answering his challenge?
Then, under his Master's instructions, Diarmuid left the bayside warehouse district and headed for the seaside park.
Standing atop a tree and looking into the distance, Diarmuid clearly saw two female Servants locked in battle.
More astonishingly, the two female Servants looked remarkably alike. Diarmuid was deeply surprised, but he also understood the situation.
If an old acquaintance of his had been summoned as a Servant in the Holy Grail War, he too would have asked his Master to let him fight that acquaintance first.
Are the two fighting... Saber and Berserker...?
His Master's voice came through their magical link, and Diarmuid knew his Master was considering how to arrange things.
Master, aside from close combat, that Berserker can actually use powerful magecraft. Even Saber, with her excellent Magic Resistance, has suffered at her hands. Diarmuid reported the battle he had observed.
Faced with such an opponent, Diarmuid's blood surged with the desire to challenge Berserker. But as a knight, he could not permit himself to violate the spirit of chivalry by interfering in a duel between Servants as a third party.
His Master, however, had no such reservations.
It seems that Berserker will become a troublesome enemy if she remains alive. Lancer, assist Saber and eliminate Berserker.
"But, my lord! Interfering like this is simply—"
Diarmuid could not help speaking aloud, pleading with his Master, who was watching from the shadows.
"This is an order."
But his Master merely issued that cold ultimatum.
The Lancer Servant clenched both spears in his hands. The weapons were still wrapped in rune cloth meant to conceal their true forms.
Even if he had to violate chivalry, Diarmuid did not wish to disobey his lord's logical command.
"...As you command." He answered with difficulty, then charged toward the battlefield of the two Servants.
The next instant, a sudden sense of danger made Diarmuid halt.
As though appearing from nowhere, a whirlwind made of black crows suddenly emerged. At first, there were only a dozen or so, but two seconds later, they rapidly multiplied into hundreds, then thousands.
The crows' harsh cries sounded deeply ominous.
In the blink of an eye, the crows dispersed again. At the center of that "whirlwind" stood a young man dressed in winter clothes.
"A very sound tactic, but sorry, it's one-way from here onward. Please turn back, Lancer. You too, Master." Xi Jianxi extended a hand in a gesture of dismissal.
Recognizing at a glance that the other party was not a Servant in disguise, but a Master in the Holy Grail War, Diarmuid's tense body relaxed slightly.
That trick of appearing from nowhere might have been illusion magecraft, or perhaps spatial transfer. Either way, it proved that his opponent was no ordinary person.
But it was common knowledge in the Holy Grail War that a Master could not rival a Servant.
"Stand aside. I do not wish to stain the twin spears in my hands with another Master's blood." Diarmuid raised his long spear, its tip pointing from afar at Xi Jianxi's brow.
Seeing that persuasion was useless, Xi Jianxi slowly lowered his arm. "That won't do. Someone else is catching up with an old acquaintance. Wouldn't it be rather tactless for you to go interrupt them?"
In truth, he had left the decision on the spot entirely to Morgan. After bringing Sakura and Karen home and getting them settled, Xi Jianxi had hurried here without pause.
Seeing Morgan's battle with Artoria nearing its climax, while Morgan was not at a disadvantage, Xi Jianxi had decided to wait.
He had not expected Lancer's Master to want to join the battle and have his Servant exploit the situation.
"Sorry, but I cannot disobey my lord's command." Diarmuid could only respond thus. "If you refuse to move aside, then I can only force my way through!"
Among the Servants in the Holy Grail War, the Lancer class had the highest baseline Agility rank of A, even surpassing Rider's Agility baseline.
As an exceptional Lancer, Diarmuid possessed Agility at A+.
He was confident that, relying on his speed, no modern Magus could possibly stop him from passing—
That should have been the case.
Diarmuid intended to bypass Xi Jianxi directly and rush toward the battlefield, but at the instant they passed each other, a low kick came straight at him.
Caught off guard, he hurriedly blocked it. The enormous momentum sent him flying, throwing him several meters farther back than where he had started his charge.
"How... is that possible..." Diarmuid could not believe it.
Xi Jianxi's kick had not injured him, but the shock it brought was more than enough.
A human Magus could keep up with a Servant's speed and counterattack on that basis.
This is a good opportunity! Eliminate Berserker's Master, Lancer!
His Master's order followed. Diarmuid no longer hesitated, nor did he feel any regret.
Able to stand shoulder to shoulder with a Servant, even if he was a human Magus, this Lancer no longer held the slightest contempt for him.
Having driven Diarmuid back, Xi Jianxi wrote four runes around them at that moment.
"Qualities of the Shallow Brook?"
Something no Celtic warrior could possibly fail to recognize.
It was an oath never to be defeated or retreat, a mark that absolutely forbade fleeing to preserve one's life.
"Could you perhaps be connected to the Knights of the Red Branch, sir? Or perhaps a descendant of those warriors?" Diarmuid assumed a combat stance.
"What do you think?" Xi Jianxi had no intention of explaining. A pebble flew from his hand.
"hagalaz."
With the Rune's pronunciation, the pebble shot past Diarmuid's cheek as he dodged, then suddenly exploded, unleashing bitterly cold magecraft capable of freezing everything.
Though he evaded with all his might, his left arm—and the hand holding his short spear—was inevitably coated in a thin layer of frost that spread all the way to his neck.
Surprised, Diarmuid looked at his arm, then exerted a little force. The magical energy he released dispersed the frost.
Then the Lancer Servant laughed from the bottom of his heart.
"Strength sufficient to send me flying, profound Rune Magic... I am delighted to meet an opponent like you."
"What a pain. I really don't want to fight you..."
Xi Jianxi assumed a stance with his bare hands, doing the exact opposite of what he said.
Two Fronts
The usually tranquil waters off Fuyuki City were now churning with towering waves.
Artoria rose and fell with the swells, panting as she looked toward Morgan in the distance.
In life, Artoria had never fought her sister Morgan. To her, Morgan's magecraft and spear techniques were both entirely unfamiliar.
From a purely combat perspective, Morgan was clearly more versatile than Artoria.
Morgan's skilled use of magecraft on the battlefield might have surpassed even Artoria's teacher, Merlin.
As Saber thought this, Morgan's declaration reached her.
"Be honored, Artoria. I mean it."
Artoria could not help raising her guard to the utmost. Her magical energy surged to its limits, even reinforcing her body's defenses to prevent herself from being injured by the same attack a second time.
When the white light of magical energy in Morgan's hand condensed to its limit, it suddenly flew from her hand and vanished into the sky.
Artoria remained fully alert.
"Saber! Above you!"
Irisviel's slender voice came from the shore, warning Artoria anxiously.
Unable to predict the form of the next magical attack, Artoria prioritized the defenses within her body and watched Morgan's every move, but inadvertently neglected her surroundings.
She abruptly looked up.
Directly above Artoria, space was like a water surface into which thick ink had been dropped. It darkened to black as ripples spread outward.
Pale blue-white motes of magical energy emerged across the "water's surface," slowly circling the center of the ripples.
Dense magical energy rose from beneath the "water."
A sharp spearhead slowly emerged from within, rotating.
This was bad!
Artoria's instincts screamed warnings. In an instant, she released the Wind King Barrier concealing her weapon's form, revealing the golden, radiant blade. She swung upward with all her strength, meeting that Demon Spear.
As Noble Phantasm and magecraft collided, their unstoppable magical energy caused the already turbulent sea to cave deeply inward around Artoria.
There was no time to release its true name. She could only meet it in the Noble Phantasm's most basic form.
The immense magical pressure forced Artoria's legs to bend as she stood upon the sea. She blocked the Demon Spear descending from above with every ounce of strength in her body, and as her power reached its limit, the King of Knights let out a battle cry brimming with fighting spirit.
"Haaaaah—!!!"
The two forces canceled each other out. Wind pressure drove the sea surface several meters deeper once more, and after a moment of silence, a hurricane powerful enough to tear people apart spread in all directions.
Irisviel fell onto the beach, instinctively lowering herself to resist the aftermath sweeping in from the battlefield.
Also caught in the blast were Kiritsugu Emiya and Maiya Hisau, who had arrived at the seaside park by following the signal from the transmitter Irisviel carried with her.
The instincts the two had developed through long experience on the battlefield made them take cover behind thick tree trunks at once.
A violent gust swept past both sides of the trunk. Fragile leaves and branches were torn away, and the park's forest roared turbulently.
The battle had broken out directly at the seaside park. The nearest high ground in this area was the bayside warehouse district several hundred meters away, where cranes and towers stood.
Forced to approach covertly through the woods, Kiritsugu had arrived very close to his wife, Irisviel.
"Kiritsugu, it seems there are other people fighting nearby." Maiya's voice came through the earpiece of the radio device. "The combatants appear to be Berserker's Master and Lancer's Servant. The battle is moving toward the bayside warehouses in Fuyuki."
Kiritsugu could not help feeling deeply shocked.
The Holy Grail War had only the loose rule that battles should not take place in public. Whom one opposed or allied with was entirely up to Masters and Servants.
But Masters and Servants fighting separately had gone beyond Kiritsugu Emiya's understanding of the Holy Grail War.
Had Berserker lost her reason due to Mad Enhancement and abandoned her Master, resulting in the Master being attacked by another Servant?
If that were the case, why had the Master not used Command Spells to summon Berserker back for defense?
Was there no time? Kiritsugu found himself with further questions.
"I've spotted the madam, Kiritsugu." Maiya reported again. "She appears to have been knocked down on the beach by the aftermath of Saber and Berserker's battle."
Kiritsugu tightened his grip on the Walter sniper rifle in his hands and made his decision. "Maiya, go meet up with Irisviel. I'm going to see who is fighting Berserker's Master."
"Understood."
After issuing the order, Kiritsugu set off immediately. He passed through the woods and bushes of Fuyuki Seaside Park, heading straight for the bayside warehouses.
He had no intention of revealing himself to support either side. Saber and Berserker were locked in a hard-fought battle, and if Saber was in danger of defeat, Kiritsugu would choose to snipe Berserker's Master from the shadows.
He ran swiftly along the darkness on the eastern side of the harbor, vaulting over neatly stacked shipping containers with his bare hands as he searched for a suitable observation point.
The ideal location was the gantry crane here, the highest point in the entire bayside warehouse district.
But if that was the case, someone would surely have occupied it beforehand, using it as the best lookout point to monitor Masters and Servants approaching from any direction.
Before you continue