The King of Conquerors' voice was still echoing over the harbor when a thoroughly displeased snort came from the edge of a warehouse roof to the north.
"Iskandar."
Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald stood on the warehouse roof, a few strands of his pale flaxen-blond hair ruffled by the gust left by the thunder bulls.
For him, even this counted as a loss of composure.
His pale purple eyes fixed on the slight figure huddled behind the King of Conquerors on the chariot.
Iskandar.
The King of Conquerors.
The holy relic he had prepared, the scrap of cloak that should have allowed him to summon the emperor who had swept across Europe and Asia and made Kayneth El-Melloi the Master of the strongest Servant, had been stolen.
Kayneth had never been able to understand it.
Who could possibly have breached the Clock Tower's security system, his own protective bounded fields, and the triple-locked safe in his workshop to take the holy relic?
Now the answer was right before his eyes.
Waver Velvet.
The failing student whose paper he had rejected in class, a boy of unremarkable birth and equally unremarkable aptitude for magecraft, who did not even qualify as third-rate at the Clock Tower.
Kayneth's right eyelid twitched.
He walked to the edge of the warehouse roof, exposing himself fully above the battlefield.
The night wind pulled his dark blue aristocratic coat taut, its gold trim reflecting the harbor lights.
His white-gloved hands hung at his sides, fingers clenched tight enough to make the leather creak faintly.
"Waver Velvet."
The name left Kayneth's mouth, every syllable frighteningly cold.
Waver's back went rigid.
He knew that voice all too well.
In the Clock Tower's mineralogy classroom, Kayneth had stood at the lectern and torn his paper to shreds before the entire class, dismissing his academic views as the delusions of a country mage.
During that lesson, Waver's pen-holding hand had trembled beneath his desk for a long time.
"So you were the fool who stole my holy relic."
Kayneth took a step forward.
His soles rested on the edge of the roof as he looked down at the pale-faced boy on the chariot.
"Good. Very good. It seems the lessons you received at the Clock Tower weren't thorough enough. You probably need another."
There was little change in his pale purple eyes, but that calm was more frightening than anger.
"Allow me, your teacher, to give you a proper lesson, Waver Velvet. In what it means for mages to... kill one another."
Waver's teeth were chattering.
Not from the cold.
To Waver, the name Kayneth El-Melloi carried enough weight on its own.
A young member of the Clock Tower's Twelve Lords, a genius among geniuses, someone the lowest-ranking students could barely reach even with their heads tilted back.
Under the gaze of those eyes, Waver's knees began to weaken.
But there was a wall beside Waver.
Over two meters tall, clad in armor and a red cloak, a living wall whose mere presence made it hard to breathe.
Iskandar did not even turn to look at Kayneth.
The King of Conquerors' gaze remained on Artoria and Diarmuid in the center of the battlefield, as though the Clock Tower Lord radiating murderous intent from the rooftop were nothing more than an annoyingly noisy insect overhead.
"Oh? Lancer's Master?"
The King of Conquerors finally glanced at Kayneth.
Just once.
Then Iskandar looked down at Waver again.
"Master, that man says he's going to kill you. Are you afraid?"
Waver's lips moved twice, but no words came out.
Iskandar did not wait for an answer.
The King of Conquerors turned toward Kayneth, his right hand gripping the hilt of the Sword of Cyprus as he casually rested it on his shoulder, his tone as relaxed as idle conversation.
"Lancer's Master. Let me make this clear. Only a warrior who dares join me on the battlefield and tread the same sands is worthy of being my Master."
The corner of Kayneth's eye twitched.
"A mage like you, hiding on a rooftop, letting your Servant risk his life for you while you don't even dare hold a blade yourself-"
Iskandar's delivery was level.
"I will not acknowledge you."
Kayneth's expression shifted several times before finally darkening.
His lips pressed into a thin line.
Beneath his white gloves, his hands clenched tighter.
He did not retort.
Not because he did not want to.
The King of Conquerors' words were too direct, too crude, and too consistent with his own stance.
For the moment, Kayneth could find no words to put him in his place.
Diarmuid stood in the center of the battlefield, watching his Master suffer public humiliation, a trace of complexity entering his golden-amber eyes.
His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.
The King of Conquerors was no longer looking at Kayneth.
Iskandar turned to face the darkness surrounding the docks and raised the Sword of Cyprus above his head.
"That battle between Saber and Lancer was truly magnificent! It set my blood racing! I couldn't help coming here in person to offer my praise!"
His voice was loud, drowning out the harbor wind.
"And surely I'm not the only Servant drawn here by such a splendid battle?"
His amber eyes swept over the harbor's high vantage points, its shadows, and the corners between shipping containers.
"Heroic Spirits summoned to this land by the Holy Grail! Gather here now!"
The King of Conquerors swept his right arm in a wide circle, golden shortsword in hand, as though to encompass the entire harbor.
"If you continue skulking in hiding, you shall henceforth face the contempt! And! Humiliation of Iskandar, King of Conquerors!"
He roared the final words, sending them bouncing back and forth between the shipping containers.
The harbor fell silent for two seconds.
Then the air shimmered atop a streetlamp to the southeast.
Spirit form was dispelled.
A slender boy materialized out of empty space.
He had short, bright golden hair and crimson eyes, and wore a short black-and-gold ceremonial outfit.
The boy sat on the metal housing atop the streetlamp, one leg dangling and swinging, his posture utterly casual.
The young Gilgamesh.
A faint smile lingered at the boy's lips as his crimson eyes looked down at the King of Conquerors on the chariot below.
He did not look angry, nor did he look as though he had stepped out in response to a provocation. Rather, he resembled someone who had been bored for a long time and had finally spotted something to pass the time.
"Oh? The King of Conquerors. You're every bit as noisy as I imagined."
The boy's voice was clear, his arrogance entirely natural.
Meanwhile.
Three hundred meters in the air.
Mayuri floated in the night, her rose-red eyes watching the scene below, her mind clamoring.
Don't move.
The mission is to observe and record.
I can't expose myself.
Tokiomi Tohsaka said not to expose myself.
All I have to do is stay here and relay the information from below.
Whether the King of Conquerors respects me has no bearing on my Noble Phantasm's power or the outcome of the Holy Grail War.
A Servant's dignity won't put food on the table.
But the other side was not so settled either.
It was not that Iskandar's provocation had actually been all that effective.
Mayuri had a fairly high tolerance for being looked down on.
When she had been a shut-in guy in her previous life, being looked down on by society had hardly been anything new.