The light faded very slowly.
First it retreated from the stone walls, then slid back from the edges of the ceiling into the magic circle, before finally shrinking entirely into the figure at its center.
Tokiomi Tohsaka lowered his arm. When he saw the scene before him clearly, he nearly failed to maintain his composure.
The lines formed from melted jewels at the center of the magic circle had cracked, tiny fractures spreading everywhere.
The summoning circle that had taken three generations of the Tohsaka Family's savings to complete was essentially ruined.
But Tokiomi had no time to mourn the expense.
His attention was fixed entirely on the center of the circle.
A girl stood there.
She looked fifteen or sixteen, with such a slender figure that a slightly stronger wind seemed capable of blowing her over.
Her long, pale champagne-gold hair was tied high on the left in a ponytail that fell almost to the backs of her knees.
Residual motes of magical energy still clung to her white, wing-shaped hair ornament, and the two little feather ornaments beside her ears swayed gently.
The girl wore a black ceremonial outfit trimmed in gold, fitted far too closely.
A cutout at her chest held a gear-shaped sacred crest, which glowed softly.
There were segmented cutouts around her waist and abdomen as well, and the gold trim of her short black pleated skirt drifted gently in the residual magical energy.
Behind her, two pairs of pure white wings spread wide.
The feathers glimmered in the dim workshop, so pristine they hardly seemed to belong in this world.
Behind the wings hovered two large, round structures of black substance, their spherical surfaces covered in purplish-red, beadlike eyes.
Those eyes were slowly turning, as though surveying the underground workshop.
Tokiomi Tohsaka's breath stopped for a moment.
Behind him, Risei Kotomine drew in a sharp breath.
The old priest had seen plenty of holy relics in his lifetime and had personally verified many miraculous phenomena.
Yet the sight before him still left his mouth hanging open for a long while.
Kirei Kotomine said nothing.
He simply watched the center of the magic circle.
Something seemed to have appeared in those dark brown eyes, so faint that even he could not make it out.
Then the being who had descended from the Throne of Heroes lowered her head and examined her hands.
The workshop fell silent for a few seconds.
Mayuri-no, to be precise, the soul now standing in this unfamiliar stone chamber.
She had not yet had time to work out what the name Mayuri even meant for her.
What was the last thing I remembered?
A room.
A computer screen.
A keyboard covered in potato chip crumbs.
I think I was browsing a forum, and then there was a crash overhead, as if something had come smashing down from the ceiling.
After that, nothing.
A huge stretch of her mind was blank.
Then a jumble of knowledge began cramming itself inside.
The Holy Grail.
Seven Servants. Seven Masters. The Throne of Heroes. Classes. Command Spells. Magical energy supply. Manifestation. Spirit Origins.
This was not knowledge she had learned. It was more like someone had forcibly shoved files straight into his head without even letting him click confirm.
And the knowledge came with its own notice.
The above information has been provided by the Fuyuki Greater Grail System. Servant, please confirm receipt.
The Holy Grail.
The Fuyuki Holy Grail.
What guy who'd ever been an otaku didn't know about this thing?
So, right now, I was...
Dead?
And then dragged here to fight in a Holy Grail War?
The moment that thought emerged, her mind struggled to keep up.
Wait, wait, wait. Calm down. Just calm down first.
Even if all of this was real, I was only an ordinary shut-in otaku in my previous life, wasn't I?
Forget fighting ability. I was near the bottom of the class even in the eight-hundred-meter run in PE.
Making someone like that fight in a Holy Grail War? How was that any different from making a hamster drive an F1 car?
He looked down at his hands.
Then froze.
Those hands were far too white.
Not the pallor of someone who stayed indoors out of the sun, but a whiteness with a hint of cool radiance, impossibly pristine.
The fingers were slender, the nails neatly trimmed, and the knuckles lacked the roughness left by years of typing on a keyboard.
What were these hands?
Were these my hands?
Her gaze continued downward.
Black fabric.
An excessively finely tailored black ceremonial outfit trimmed in gold.
The cutout at her chest exposed a broad expanse of skin to the air.
Several sections around her waist and abdomen were bare as well.
These clothes...
Her face instantly grew hot.
That was not a figure of speech.
It was genuinely hot.
The heat burned from her cheeks all the way to her ears, even making her neck grow hot.
Pale champagne-gold hair hung over her shoulders, its strands brushing the skin near her collarbones with a desperately unfamiliar sensation.
This wasn't a man's body.
This was a girl's body.
And it was wearing clothes like these.
Her mind simply froze.
Like a computer opening several hundred web pages at once, its fan whining twice before it blue-screened.
That was more or less how it felt.
The two pairs of white wings behind her trembled along with her, tiny motes of light falling from between the feathers.
On the two black Thunder Sanctuary spheres hovering behind her, the purplish-red eyes turned toward their owner in unison and slowly blinked.
Mayuri did not notice at all.
Embarrassment had already consumed what little processing power remained in her brain.
As Tokiomi Tohsaka watched, his brow slowly furrowed.
He could now confirm several things.
The being who had manifested within the magic circle possessed a Spirit Origin far beyond the expected rank.
Those two pairs of wings, as well as the unknown structures hovering behind her, carried a considerable degree of Mystery.
This being was connected to the concept of angels, and was neither a low-ranking echo nor the shell of a legend embellished by later generations.
This was very likely a genuine higher being.
And now, this higher being was blushing so hard she was almost steaming.
She was also extremely uncomfortable with the clothes she wore.
An ominous feeling arose in Tokiomi Tohsaka's heart.
His expression, however, did not change.
One of the accomplishments expected of an aristocratic mage was maintaining the proper dignity on one's face, no matter what one saw.
He waited ten seconds.
The girl at the center of the circle still had her head lowered, staring at the cutout over her chest.
She was blushing pink all the way to the tips of her ears, and had no idea where to put her hands.
The wings behind her drew inward a little, as though she wanted to wrap herself in them.
But the wings were too large, and their angle was wrong. A larger movement instead stirred up a gust that blew two grimoires over in a corner of the workshop.
Risei Kotomine silently bent down and picked up the books.
Kirei Kotomine remained where he was, watching it all.
A few more seconds passed.
Tokiomi Tohsaka understood.
If he did not speak, this scene would probably remain at an impasse until dawn.
So he cleared his throat softly and stepped forward, placing his right hand over his chest and bowing slightly in the most proper social manner of the head of the Tohsaka Family.
"May I ask, honored angel, would you tell me your name?"
His voice was steady, and his wording very respectful.
After all, standing before him might be a higher being from the Christian mythological system.
Even Tokiomi Tohsaka had to show sufficient courtesy.
The girl at the center of the circle raised her head.
Panic still lingered in her rose-red eyes, but at least she had recovered from a complete system crash to the point where she could barely understand outside sounds.
She looked at Tokiomi Tohsaka.
Dark formal attire.
A black suit, a white shirt, a dark tie.
His dark brown-black hair was slicked back with not a strand out of place.
His blue eyes were calm and appraising.
Everything about him, from head to toe, proclaimed considerable status.
He was talking to me.
He was asking for a name.
But... he probably wasn't asking for my name from my previous life, was he?
That name didn't mean much anymore.
Whether in Spirit Origin, appearance, or power, I was already another being now.
In those few seconds, she had finally digested some of the knowledge the Holy Grail had poured into her.
The situation was roughly as follows.
Her soul had been recorded by Alaya and entered the Throne of Heroes.
Then, with the Spirit Mayuri's Spirit Origin sealed into the Caster class framework, she had manifested in response to the Fuyuki Greater Grail's summons.
As for why she had taken Mayuri's form.
That question was far too complicated to explain, involving things like cross-world soul contamination, the grafting of power from the Spirit system, and the Throne of Heroes' automatic Spirit Origin adaptation.
The information the Holy Grail supplied had not explained it clearly either, giving only a rough outline.
In any case, this was the situation now.
The girl lowered her eyes and took a steadying breath.
Then she raised her head again, trying to keep her voice a little steadier.
"My name... now, it should be Mayuri."
She paused.
"Or perhaps you would prefer to hear my other current name, [Angel of Wisdom] Cherub."