Starting in Type-Moon, but as a Magician from A Certain Magical Index

This left Mephistopheles somewhat puzzled. When Kiritsugu Emiya had bought furniture, he had apparently wanted a fairly unified classical style, which was why he had gone with this Japanese aesthetic. But being a pragmatist, he had also added things like sofas.

Of course, that was merely Mephistopheles's guess.

As he sat there quietly, wondering whether he should wait until he had earned enough money to buy a phone, he heard Rin Tohsaka's voice.

"Mephistopheles."

"Still awake?" Mephistopheles asked.

"No..." Rin Tohsaka said. After hesitating for a moment, she continued, "There's something I want to talk to you about."

"An invitation from a girl on a quiet night? Should I be getting excited?" Mephistopheles said, though he did not enter the room.

Even though she was wearing pajamas, Mephistopheles felt he should respect the girl's wishes and not just walk in. Otherwise, wouldn't that make him a pervert?

"Come in and talk," Rin Tohsaka said.

Since she had said so, Mephistopheles entered the room where she was currently sleeping, one of the formerly vacant bedrooms in the Emiya Household.

The door on one side, which should have been closed, stood open, revealing the view outside. The moonlight was bright enough that the room remained clearly visible even without any lights on.

The girl had already climbed out of bed. Dressed in pajamas, she sat off to the side, allowing the moonlight to spill over her body.

Under the moonlight, the girl looked inexplicably alluring.

"By the way, Mephistopheles, what you said earlier..." Rin Tohsaka said, glancing at him as he entered. The corners of her mouth rose slightly. "Sounded rather like harassment."

"But I didn't harass you. I merely voiced a question," Mephistopheles said without admitting anything. "When a beautiful girl greets and invites you in the middle of the night, I think any normal man would be excited."

"Enough, let's not talk about that..." Rin Tohsaka shook her head. She realized she could not win an argument against Mephistopheles. The man was thick-skinned and shameless.

She did not continue the topic, instead asking what she had wanted to ask him.

"Do you know Miss Matou?"

"No." Mephistopheles shook his head without hesitation. He did not choose to lie and simply told the truth.

"Then why do I feel like the two of you should know each other?"

"I really don't know her. I mean, this is only the second time I've seen her here. The first was at school. I did consider investigating the Matou family before, but unfortunately, because of the Matou family's barrier, I gave up in the end to avoid alerting them."

Rin Tohsaka stared at Mephistopheles in surprise. She had never expected that he had intended to investigate the Matou family from the very beginning. This guy actually cared that much about the Holy Grail War!

No, since his goal was not to obtain the Holy Grail, but to prevent tragedies from happening, it was only natural for him to pay attention to everyone involved in this battle.

Other participants might hope for everyone except themselves to kill each other, but he most likely wanted to reduce the number of deaths.

Having spent quite some time around Mephistopheles, Rin Tohsaka thought silently.

Then Mephistopheles said, "But you're right. I also feel that Sakura might know me."

"Sakura? You're calling her by her first name already?"

"I'm lazy."

The practical answer left Rin Tohsaka speechless. Fewer syllables really did take less effort than more syllables.

Then Mephistopheles continued, "Did you discuss me?"

"We talked about you a little. By the way, do you think she's a Master?"

"Yes."

It was an entirely unsurprising answer, but Rin Tohsaka still wanted to find even the slightest possibility that Sakura was not a participant in the Holy Grail War. "Have you already found evidence?"

"When she came this morning, there was clearly a Servant hiding beside her. I don't know whether Saber and the others could sense it, but at the very least, I could feel that the hidden individual had been following Sakura the entire time.

"Judging from that, Sakura is obviously one of the participants in this Holy Grail War, and a Master. As for her Command Spell not being on her hand, could it be hidden somewhere else?"

"Right! There was no Command Spell on her hand! But this thing could be hidden elsewhere..." Rin Tohsaka pondered it, yet could not think of where else it could be placed. "That's hard to figure out. There are too many places it could be hidden. It could be almost anywhere on her body!"

"Then don't think about it. Sakura is definitely a Master, and she has been hiding her identity all along. Sigh, as the Matou family's heir, she's a tragedy too. A capital-T Tragedy." As Mephistopheles spoke, he secretly observed Rin Tohsaka's expression.

Hearing Mephistopheles's words, Rin Tohsaka's expression changed. She became extremely tense and hurriedly asked, "What happened to the Matou family?!"

"Why are you so nervous? They should count as your opponents. If there's something wrong with the Matou family, shouldn't that make things easier for you? It's not like they're dying or anything."

Mephistopheles's leisurely words did little to reassure Rin Tohsaka. She turned her face slightly away, but still asked, "What secret does the Matou family have? As someone from the Tohsaka family, of course I need to understand!"

Mephistopheles smiled and asked, "But casually asking about something like that is equivalent to declaring war between magus families, isn't it?"

Rin Tohsaka's expression became even uglier. She looked like someone being forced to eat something filthy, knowing she had no choice but to swallow it.

What should I do? Just as Mephistopheles said, these are the rules of magus families. I should abide by them... I shouldn't casually break those rules. After all, I'm a member of the Tohsaka family, and a descendant of this land's overseers!

Rin Tohsaka struggled inwardly, but in the end, she suppressed that struggle.

"As a Master, I order you to tell me, Mephistopheles. What secret is the Matou family hiding?!"

It's all for Sakura. All for my only little sister!

Such a declaration echoed through Rin Tohsaka's heart.

But unfortunately, Mephistopheles clearly had no intention of giving up the information so easily. "Then can you tell me why you're so anxious to learn the Matou family's secret?"

Seeing the obvious smile on Mephistopheles's face, Rin Tohsaka stiffened her neck and said firmly, "Naturally, it's because I am the master of this land. Even if that position isn't very useful anymore, I still have to take responsibility for my territory!

"If the Matou family's secret poses a tremendous threat, then I must intervene for the sake of the people here!"

"Not a bad reason. I'll accept it," Mephistopheles nodded. Rin Tohsaka breathed a sigh of relief, secretly thinking she had passed the test. Then his next words nearly made her scream. "So your wanting to know all this has nothing to do with Sakura being your sister, right?"

Rin Tohsaka's heart stopped in that instant, then began pounding even more violently, as though she had suddenly been in a car crash.

Her eyes went blank at first, then flew wide open. She nearly jumped straight up.

She raised her right hand and pointed at Mephistopheles, but could not even form a complete, coherent sentence.

"Y-you, you, you, you..."

"So has my poor Master finally lost the ability to speak?"

"Whew..." Rin Tohsaka worked hard to draw in a deep breath, then let it out. She found that speaking was still incredibly difficult, as if her mouth were no longer under her control.

"Y-you, how did you... how did you know?!"

Fortunately, she finally managed to finish the sentence.

"Of course, I knew through my overwhelming strength!"

Faced with Mephistopheles's answer, Rin Tohsaka remained in shock. What secrets of hers could still be hidden? Just how much did he know?!

From the looks of things, he did not merely know about her. He probably knew every single secret of the Matou family as well!

As the shame of having her secret exposed washed over her, Rin Tohsaka's cheeks flushed and her body grew hot. Yet as that shame came and faded, she instead felt a trace of relief and ease.

She no longer needed to hide some of her thoughts. Driven by a strange urge to simply stop caring, she no longer concealed anything from him and said directly, "I'm worried about my sister. So can you tell me now?"

"Of course." Mephistopheles nodded gently, then revealed a cruel truth. "Sakura was never meant to exist as an heir."

But Rin Tohsaka clearly had not grasped the cruelty within those words. "Then that means the heir is Shinji Matou?"

"Why is your thinking so un-magelike?" Mephistopheles "criticized" Rin Tohsaka's way of thinking. Then, taking advantage of the moment when she puffed up her cheeks in anger, he spoke the words he had not yet said.

"Shinji Matou isn't the heir either. The master of the Matou family has never changed. There has always only been one person. Do you understand what I mean?"

"There has always only been one person?!" Rin Tohsaka first pondered it, then her eyes slowly widened. A simple sentence left her feeling suffocated.

There has always only been one person? What does that mean? The Matou family's history goes back several centuries. Are you saying the head of the Matou family has never changed all these years? But according to history, there were still changes...

At that point, Rin Tohsaka abruptly shut her mouth. Then, under Mephistopheles's gaze, she slowly spoke. "You mean the several family heads we've seen were actually all the same person?!"

"That's right. By using fresh bodies to keep himself alive. As long as he changed bodies, that was enough. Naturally, the better the body's aptitude, the better the results.

"He didn't want to transfer into some useless body either. So Shinji Matou would not be the heir. Sakura's body is the heir, not Sakura's soul."

The simple description allowed Rin Tohsaka to understand the Matou family's horror and cruelty. She suddenly thought of someone, a man she had known as a child, who had always blushed around her mother, smiled at her mother, and treated Rin well too.

"So Uncle Kariya left the family in the beginning because he knew about this?"

"Oh, you mean Kariya Matou. Another tragedy. But even after learning of the tragedy, he threw himself into it. In the end, all one could say was that it had been his own choice."

Rin Tohsaka stared at Mephistopheles in surprise. "You know about that too?!"

"Kariya Matou was one of the participants in the Fourth Holy Grail War. He had originally left the Matou family, but returned for your sister Sakura. Yet that old immortal never intended to win. He merely wanted to watch the traitor who had defied him suffer.

"As for Kariya Matou's final fate, I'd guess that old man was thrilled for a long time. Though perhaps he felt that kind of pain still wasn't enough."

"So what exactly happened back then..." Rin Tohsaka asked carefully.

Mephistopheles looked at her with pity in his eyes. "Are you prepared to know everything? To learn about your father's death, and the source of every tragedy?"

"I..." Rin Tohsaka wanted to say she was prepared, but the pity in his eyes—and the truth hidden beneath it—placed immense pressure upon her.

Rin Tohsaka could not say the words, "I'm ready." After hesitating for a while, she finally said, "No, wait a little longer... For now, tell me what happened to Sakura!"

That was right. Nothing else mattered now. What mattered was learning what had happened to Sakura!

"I can tell you that directly. Sakura's body was continuously tortured and modified so she could adapt to the Matou family's magecraft, as well as that old immortal's sorcery. To do that, Sakura had to endure being gnawed on by insects inside a worm pit, becoming a worm nest herself, a container for the insects.

"She had suffered through all of that from the moment she was taken away, until she finally adapted to the torture. Only afterward did she begin to live anything resembling a normal life.

"As for why she came to Shirou Emiya's home, it was essentially to monitor him. After all, Shirou Emiya is Kiritsugu Emiya's son. To the Matou family's current old immortal, monitoring someone who could affect the course of the Holy Grail War was very necessary."

Rin Tohsaka's eyes nearly spat fire. She had never imagined that what her sister endured had been so horrifying. Even though Mephistopheles had described it simply, in only a few brief sentences, the terror within it was unimaginable.

Such a terrifying experience could easily be called hell, yet her sister had never told her any of it!

No, it's my fault. I never asked her...

Because of those damned rules of magus families, she had never asked those questions!

Rin Tohsaka clenched her fists tightly. Right now, she wanted to find somewhere to vent all the fury in her heart!

"The old man's goal, or rather obsession, is to prolong his life through the Holy Grail. So tell me, wouldn't it be wonderful to completely destroy the Holy Grail in front of him and make it impossible for another Holy Grail War to ever happen?" Mephistopheles fanned the flames from the side as he laid out his plan.

If the original Rin Tohsaka might have needed to consider it, the current one did not. She had only one thought now: she would make that old immortal pay!

This Was No Longer a Holy Grail War

Over the next two days, Sakura Matou remained as she had been before—or rather, she returned to how she had initially been. Yet Shirou Emiya could still sense the subtle difference. Sakura Matou would always, intentionally or unintentionally, pay attention to Mephistopheles, as though it were a habit she had long since developed.

Shirou Emiya did not ask about it. He felt that it was her secret, and he should not ask unless she wanted to tell him herself.

The days passed one by one. After about a week, everyone finally faced their first exam—or rather, everyone except Rin Tohsaka faced their first exam.

Mephistopheles stood at the doorway with great ease, silently watching the group inside frantically working through problems.

He then looked toward the other side, where another person stood: a girl named Artoria.

"You're curious?" Mephistopheles asked. Artoria shook her head. "I simply find it strange."

As she spoke, she looked at the group inside. "Shirou, Illya, and Rin should all be enemies, yet not only are they getting along harmoniously here, they've even accepted a Servant as their teacher and are studying magical knowledge together."

"Isn't it stranger for Servants to be summoned solely to fight?" Mephistopheles said bluntly. "Take you, for example. Your swordsmanship is excellent, and you have practical combat experience from the age of cold weapons. Those are all things you can teach others."

Artoria shook her head. "This era has no need for such knowledge."

"Not necessarily. There are still plenty of historical martial arts enthusiasts. Besides, learning swordsmanship for self-defense is quite good too. And more importantly, you're someone from that era. Modern speculation about certain historical events could be verified by asking you. In other words, you'd be a historian's dream."

Artoria stared blankly at Mephistopheles. She had not expected him to think about such things.

Mephistopheles even smiled proudly. "That's far more useful than fighting and killing!"

Artoria nodded somewhat helplessly. She could not refute those words. Fighting and killing truly were the worst option. As a king, she could be certain of that.

But wasn't this a Holy Grail War? How had it become like this? Going to school every day, then returning home to keep studying? It was like moving from one school to another.

However, after speaking with Artoria, Mephistopheles looked toward another direction. Someone was hiding there, watching everything happening here, and had been hiding there for several days.

That was Sakura Matou's Servant, Medusa.

Since Medusa did not intend to reveal herself, Mephistopheles did not call her out. He guessed that after having Medusa watch for so many days, Sakura Matou would soon come looking for him.

Sure enough, at around one in the morning, Medusa appeared.

The purple-haired woman wearing an eyemask looked at Mephistopheles and said in her cool voice, "Someone wants to see you."

Her tone was icy, as if she possessed no emotion at all.

Mephistopheles asked directly, "Sakura? She wants to see me?"

"Yes." Medusa nodded, then leapt away from the Emiya Residence.

By then, nearly everyone inside the house was asleep. Medusa's stealth abilities truly were impressive; the other Servants had not been awakened by her.