The lion form's fourth charge slammed Berserker into the wreckage of the last row of containers at the edge of the docks.
Crimson-gold arcs gathered into a ball of light inside the metal lion's mouth and shot into the heap of twisted steel.
The explosion lit up half the harbor.
Then Berserker stopped.
It could hardly be called a defeat.
The knight wreathed in black mist rose from the wreckage, looking little different from a second ago, with few visible injuries.
But his limbs locked up, his movements stiff, like a machine whose power had been unplugged from the outside.
The black mist churned less violently. Those two points of scarlet light flickered a few times, then dimmed.
On the outskirts of the harbor, in a dark alley roughly three hundred meters from the battlefield.
A white-haired man lay facedown on the asphalt.
His skin was unnaturally gray, the flesh on his face twitched, and it was impossible to tell whether the stuff leaking from the corner of his mouth was blood or something else.
His body kept shaking. With every shudder, a patch of skin bulged beneath his clothes, then quickly sank back down.
Those were crest worms.
The things the Matou Family used as mediums for magecraft were gnawing away at the last of his life force from inside his body.
Kariya Matou could no longer hold on.
The magical energy required to command a Berserker-class Servant far exceeded what his body could withstand.
Kariya had been thrust into the world of magecraft halfway through, relying on crest worms to forcibly create magic circuits.
Those few minutes of fighting had already drained him to the brink of death.
The magical energy flowing through the contract link came in fits and starts.
Berserker's reason had been swallowed by Mad Enhancement, but the most basic rules governing a Servant remained deep within his Spirit Origin.
Without magical energy, he could not maintain a physical form. He registered that the supply from his Master was cutting off.
The red points of light turned in one final direction.
Berserker did not look at Mayuri, nor at the lion-form Thunder Sanctuary, much less at the King of Conquerors standing on his chariot.
He looked at Artoria, standing before Irisviel with her sword in hand.
That gaze lingered for less than a second.
The black mist contracted into a mass, then his entire humanoid figure vanished from the battlefield.
Spirit form.
Berserker melted into the night, and even the remaining fluctuations of magical energy soon dissipated completely.
Mayuri hovered forty meters in the air, urgently searching below.
Her rose-red eyes swept every visible part of the harbor.
The container stacks, behind the warehouses, inside the gantry cranes' steel frames, beneath the chassis of abandoned trucks-she searched them all.
She could not find him. If a Servant in spirit form deliberately hid, they were difficult to locate unless one happened to catch the instant they materialized.
She could no longer catch him.
Mayuri bit her lower lip and quickly took stock of what she still had at her disposal.
She could launch a wide-area attack.
If she truly unleashed Thunder Sanctuary's Sword of Blazing Flame, covering the entire harbor would be no problem.
But that would catch Artoria, Diarmuid, Iskandar, and that young Gilgamesh in it as well.
Even with Mayuri's confidence in her firepower, provoking the King of Knights, the King of Conquerors, and the King of Heroes all at once was hardly a good thing.
Forget it.
The lion-form Thunder Sanctuary received the order to cease attacking, and the giant metal beast halted its offensive stance.
Its purplish-red eyes swept the wreckage, then its entire body began folding back in.
Its limbs retracted, its head withdrew into its torso, and its torso compressed in turn.
A dozen or so seconds later, it had returned to that black sphere, slowly rising into the sky and returning to its invisible position above Fuyuki City, entering concealment.
Mayuri still hovered forty meters above the ground.
She looked down at the harbor.
Berserker had escaped.
Her first proper battle in this Holy Grail War had ended just like that, neither here nor there.
She had not won, nor had she suffered a loss.
To put it bluntly, both sides had sounded each other out, then backed off.
How lame.
However she looked at it, Mayuri could not feel satisfied with her first battle turning out like this.
On the ground below, the remaining Servants and Masters were also stuck in place.
Berserker was no longer a variable, but five Servants remained on the battlefield.
Saber Artoria, Lancer Diarmuid, Rider Iskandar, the blond boy Archer on the streetlamp, and Mayuri in the air.
Counting their Masters, there were even more people.
If anyone struck first now, it was hard to say how the others would react.
No one moved.
Artoria stood before Irisviel, holding her invisible sword.
Her emerald-green eyes checked the position of everyone present.
Dozens of meters away, Diarmuid held his two spears crossed, his golden-amber eyes no less vigilant.
Iskandar stood on his chariot with his arms folded, wearing an expression that asked what they were supposed to do next.
Waver huddled behind him, trembling violently.
The blond boy atop the streetlamp spoke first.
"Boring."
Just one word.
His crimson eyes swept everyone on the battlefield.
His expression was like that of a child who had wandered a toy store for ages, only to discover there was nothing he wanted to buy.
The boy's figure turned into golden motes and scattered into the night wind.
He retreated in spirit form, clean and decisive, without leaving another word.
Diarmuid was the second to leave.
The knight of the Fianna drew his yellow spear back into his left hand and his red spear into his right, then turned toward Artoria.
The wound in his right flank still seeped blood, but he stood straight.
"Saber."
Artoria looked over.
"Tonight's battle was interrupted, but I do not consider this the end."
The corners of Diarmuid's mouth lifted, his fighting spirit still undiminished.
"The next time we meet, let us continue today's duel. Please be sure to give it your all then. I, too, will use everything I have against you."
Artoria paused, then nodded.
"I look forward to it."
Diarmuid smiled.
With that smile still on his face, his figure dispersed into spirit form.
Kayneth, on the warehouse roof, also disappeared from view, probably concealing his departure with magecraft.
Iskandar dusted off his hands.
"Then let us call it a night, Heroic Spirits! I am most pleased with our encounter tonight!"
The King of Conquerors' voice was still loud enough to carry across the docks.
"When next we meet, I hope to have a proper fight with each and every one of you!"
He grabbed the reins and flicked them.
The thunder bulls raised their heads and bellowed, and the chariot's wheels rolled over purple lightning as it flew into the air.
In the back seat, Waver clung tightly to the metal railing. He opened his mouth to shout something, only for the oncoming wind to choke it back.
Trailing lightning, Gordius Wheel headed toward the eastern bridge.
The harbor fell quiet.
The damaged containers creaked in the sea breeze, while cracks and scorch marks in the concrete stood out starkly under the lights.
The eastern section of the docks looked as though it had been torn down.
Only three presences now remained in plain sight among the ruins.
Mayuri in the air.
Artoria on the ground.
And Irisviel behind Artoria.
As Mayuri, too, departed in spirit form, Artoria raised her head and watched the blond figure in the air scatter into motes of light.
She lowered her gaze.
"Saber?"
Irisviel walked to her side, her silver-white hair blowing across her shoulders in the sea breeze.
"What are you looking at?"
"Let us go, madam. Tonight's battle is over."
The two left the ruined harbor along the way they had come.
Artoria walked ahead with steady steps, never loosening her grip on her sword.
Irisviel followed half a step behind. Her wine-red eyes glanced back at the devastated docks before she quickened her pace to follow.
And so the first night at Fuyuki's harbor drew to a close.
The next morning.
The Tohsaka Residence.
November sunlight shone through a gap in the sitting room curtains, leaving a thin strip of light on the carpet.
Materialized, Mayuri sat on the three-seat sofa she had already grown accustomed to, with a thin blanket cushioning her back and a cup of Ceylon black tea Tokiomi Tohsaka had brewed that morning in her hands.
She did not drink.
She was thinking.
According to Mayuri's vague, fragmented memories of the original story, the first night of the Holy Grail War should have involved more than the battle at the harbor.
Something else had happened too.
What had it been? She thought for a long time before finally prying something out of those tampered memory fragments.
Kiritsugu Emiya should have attacked Kayneth's base on the first night.
With bombs.
He had blown up the entire hotel outright.
But that had not happened last night.
Mayuri was certain.
There was no way Tokiomi Tohsaka, the local power whose family had operated in Fuyuki for centuries, would fail to hear about something like a high-rise hotel in Fuyuki's new city being blown up.
She had confirmed it through their contract that morning: there had been no reports of any buildings being demolished by explosives in Fuyuki City last night.
Kiritsugu Emiya had not acted.
"The plot... has changed."
Mayuri set her teacup back on its saucer with a soft clink of porcelain.
That made sense.
With her here, last night's altered harbor battle, and so many variables that should never have appeared piled together, it was only natural for the plot to veer off course.
But if the original plot was no longer reliable, her sole informational advantage as a transmigrator-her foreknowledge of future events-would no longer be so useful.
Mayuri leaned against the thin blanket, her rose-red eyes gazing at the ceiling.