Gilgamesh Receives an Invitation

The coastal city was in the middle of winter, but generally speaking, severe cold was rare.

Shirou Emiya stood in the center of New City Square, amid the concrete forest. As he looked at the white chrysanthemums and offerings passersby had placed beneath the stone monument, his mind recalled that scorching "Purgatory" where breathing had been impossible.

"It's been ten years."

It felt like another lifetime. He turned around, removed the scarf around his neck, and draped it over the body of a doll.

Had it been left by parents for their child, or by siblings for a family member who had failed to escape the flames?

He did not know. Perhaps some passing child had felt pity and left it there as a vessel for their feelings.

The children who survived that disaster ten years ago should all have grown up by now.

Dark clouds drifted over from the distance. They would reach this area before long, and beneath the city lights, crystalline white flakes began to drift gently downward.

It was a snowy night.

"Does this place look familiar?"

Shirou Emiya seemed to be talking to himself as he spoke to the sculpture in the distance.

"I see. Looks like you've forgotten everything."

With no response forthcoming, Shirou Emiya's figure gradually faded and vanished. From behind the sculpture, a dark-skinned man with white hair slowly emerged. He resembled Red A, but golden cracks covered his entire body, as though he had been pieced together.

The city did look somewhat familiar to him, but... he could not remember it.

His mission was merely reconnaissance, including monitoring the man who seemed to have been seen somewhere before and gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

The Mion River ran across the entire city, dividing it into two areas with completely