The next day.
The sky hung low over Fuyuki City.
The lead-gray clouds were far thicker than usual, letting through not a single ray of sunlight.
The entire city was shrouded in a cold, gray-white light.
After the Sword of Blazing Flame shot into the sea last night, it had evaporated a vast amount of seawater.
That seawater had turned into vapor and been carried high into the sky by air currents, mixing with the clouds already above Fuyuki City and forming an enormous mass of thick cloud beyond the scope of normal weather systems.
The base of the clouds was less than three hundred meters above the ground, their color darkening almost to black.
It looked as though rain-or snow-might fall at any moment.
The residents of Fuyuki City pulled their clothes tighter and hurried along the streets.
Many glanced up at the clouds pressing down overhead, then quickened their pace.
The weather station had already issued a storm warning.
Einzbern Castle.
In the master bedroom on the castle's second floor, the curtains were tightly drawn.
Kiritsugu Emiya lay in bed.
The stump of his right arm had been cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged, with white bandages wrapped from five centimeters above his elbow all the way to his shoulder.
The severed arm Artoria had brought back from the battlefield was being preserved in an ice bucket beside the bed.
In principle, given the Einzbern Family's skill in human transmutation, reattaching the arm was not impossible.
But there was a problem with the person who would perform the operation.
Irisviel could no longer do it.
The woman with long, silvery-white hair lay on another bed in the next room, her eyes closed and her breathing so shallow it was almost imperceptible.
Her face had lost nearly all its color, pale enough to look a little translucent.
Two Servants had been eliminated in a single night.
Hassan of the Hundred Faces, Lancelot, Iskandar, Gilgamesh.
The souls of four Heroic Spirits had been collected by the Lesser Grail in succession.
Each soul that entered her body struck at the foundation of her existence as a human.
She had barely managed to withstand the first three.
Hassan's soul quality was low, Lancelot's was average, and Iskandar's was somewhat higher, but still within bounds.
Then came Gilgamesh.
The oldest King of Heroes in Human History, a demigod.
The quality of his soul ranked among the highest on the entire Throne of Heroes.
The moment his soul was collected, Irisviel collapsed.
As this homunculus body, created by the Einzbern Family using remnants of the Third True Magic's technology, received Gilgamesh's soul, the Lesser Grail's functions within her were driven directly to a level far beyond expectations.
The parts of her that were human began to be consumed, bit by bit, by the Lesser Grail's functions.
Her heartbeat slowed, her body temperature fell, and her five senses shut down one after another.
If this continued, her body would lose its human form entirely and become a vessel for the Lesser Grail.
A container without consciousness or life, serving only to hold the souls of Heroic Spirits.
But when this process reached roughly forty percent, it stalled.
Avalon.
King Arthur's scabbard was inside Irisviel.
Continuously powered by Artoria's mana, Avalon was intervening in the transformation within Irisviel's body in a very subtle way.
Avalon's core abilities were absolute defense and complete restoration.
It could not stop the Lesser Grail's functions from operating; those were rules on the level of the Holy Grail System, not physical or magecraft damage.
What it could do, however, was pin down the foundation of Irisviel's existence as a human, preventing the Lesser Grail from rewriting it completely.
Avalon had drawn a line deep within Irisviel's soul.
The portion above that line could be consumed by the Lesser Grail.
The portion below it-maintaining her human form, the bare minimum of vital activity, and the possibility of consciousness-had been forcibly fixed by Avalon in an inviolable state.
So Irisviel was only unconscious for now.
She had not completely lost her human form.
But neither could she wake up.
The energy within her was caught between the Lesser Grail's functions and the state Avalon had pinned in place, and any outside force might shatter that fragile balance.
Under these circumstances, Kiritsugu's severed arm could not be reattached.
The operation required Irisviel's human transmutation techniques, but she was not even conscious now.
At the bedroom doorway.
Artoria stood there.
She had removed her silver-and-blue armor and changed into her black men's suit.
Her emerald eyes shifted from Kiritsugu Emiya's room to Irisviel's room next door, then back again.
Her expression barely changed.
But her left hand at her side was clenched a little tightly.
"You knew from the beginning."
Her voice was very quiet.
It was not an accusation, merely confirmation of something she had already guessed.
Kiritsugu Emiya lay in bed, his gaze resting on the ceiling.
He did not answer.
The silence itself was an answer.
Artoria had never known that Irisviel was the Lesser Grail.
She had thought Irisviel was merely her Master's wife, her supplier of mana, a noncombatant who needed protection.
She had not known that this silver-haired woman's heart was the central vessel of this Holy Grail War.
She had not known that every Servant eliminated would take this woman a little further from the definition of human.
She had not known that the end of the Holy Grail War inevitably meant Irisviel's disappearance.
Once six Servants were eliminated, the Lesser Grail would be filled with energy and summon the Greater Grail to descend at the proper location, granting the final victor's wish.
The price of granting that wish was Irisviel.
Artoria understood everything now.
Kiritsugu had known from the beginning that winning the Holy Grail War meant killing his own wife.
Artoria turned and left the bedroom doorway.
Her footsteps echoed through the corridor for a long time.
The Tohsaka Residence.
Ten in the morning.
The bounded field's detection system at the entrance gave a gentle notification: a mage was requesting a visit according to standard etiquette.
Tokiomi Tohsaka rose from his study chair.
He went to the window and looked down.
Someone stood on the stone path outside the residence's main gate.
His pale blond hair was neatly combed.
His black coat had been replaced with a new one, showing no trace of the damage from last night's bomb and battle.
He stood straight, his hands hanging naturally at his sides.
Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald.
He had come alone, without his Servant.
Tokiomi Tohsaka raised an eyebrow.
Kayneth had come to visit?
He quickly assessed the current situation.
The King of Conquerors and the King of Heroes had both been eliminated.
Although Kayneth's Lancer was still around, Saber had given him a serious beating last night.
His three Command Spells had also been exhausted, greatly reducing his faction's fighting strength.
In Tokiomi Tohsaka's eyes, Kayneth could no longer be considered a threat.
Since the man had come to visit, it was only natural for him, as head of the Tohsaka Family and administrator of Fuyuki City's ley lines, to receive him according to the formal etiquette between mages.
Tokiomi Tohsaka opened a passage through the residence's defensive bounded field at the main gate.
Then he personally descended the stairs, pushed open the front door, and stepped outside.
His blue eyes met Kayneth's gaze on the stone path before the entrance.
"My name is Tokiomi Tohsaka, administrator of Fuyuki City's ley lines and head of the Tohsaka Family."
"May I ask what brings you here today, Lord? Please forgive me for not coming out to greet you sooner."
It was the standard form of reception used by an Eastern mage greeting a Western visitor.
His wording was respectful without being servile, his manner modest without being meek.
Tokiomi Tohsaka's aristocratic upbringing was evident on such occasions.
Standing before the entrance, Kayneth put away his usual, almost instinctive arrogance.
Not because he had become humble.
But because last night he had been bombed once, shot once, lost five hundred kilograms of Volumen Hydrargyrum and a Mana Furnace, and used up all his Command Spells.
Meanwhile, the Servant of the Eastern mage before him had just blasted the King of Heroes away with a single shot.
In a situation like this, arrogance came at a price. He could not afford it now.
"The Three Founding Families of Fuyuki City certainly have quite a background."
Kayneth went straight to the point, dispensing with pleasantries.
"At first, I thought this was merely an ordinary ritual for exchanging magecraft. Coming here has certainly opened my eyes."
He paused.
"Your Tohsaka Family has quite the reach, managing to summon a Cherub as a Servant outside the normal rules. Impressive indeed."
Tokiomi Tohsaka's eyes narrowed slightly.
Kayneth had already obtained information on Caster's true name.
After Mayuri revealed her angelic identity at the banquet, that information was no longer a secret, but the specific designation of Cherub was known only within the Tohsaka faction and to a handful of those present at the time.
The King of Conquerors had deduced that she was a Cherub.
And Waver, who had been present, had witnessed every detail of the King of Conquerors' final battle.
Kayneth had found Waver after he fell unconscious.
That was how the information had leaked.
Tokiomi Tohsaka traced that chain in two seconds.
"You flatter me, Lord. Please, come inside and we can talk."
Tokiomi Tohsaka stepped aside from the doorway and gestured for him to enter.
The reception room.
Two cups of black tea sat on the coffee table.
Tokiomi Tohsaka sat on one side, Kayneth on the other.
Steam from the tea slowly rose between them.
"I hear that the student Waver Velvet is no longer in Fuyuki City?"
Tokiomi Tohsaka lifted his teacup and took a small sip. It was a probe.
"My people have already sent him back to the Clock Tower."
Kayneth's tone was direct.
"After the King of Conquerors was eliminated, that student lost his qualification to participate. He was still unconscious when I found him."
"He had three unused Command Spells, which I transferred to myself. Afterward, I arranged for someone to send him back to London."
Tokiomi Tohsaka paused for a fraction of a second with the teacup at his lips.
Kayneth now had three new Command Spells.
Transferred from Waver.
After exhausting his original three, he now had a full reserve again.
This information was important.
"Since you have come in person today, Lord, I presume it is not merely for a cup of black tea."
Tokiomi Tohsaka set down his teacup, his blue eyes looking levelly at Kayneth.
Kayneth was silent for three seconds.
Then he spoke.
"I came today to enter into a contract with you."
Tokiomi Tohsaka's expression barely changed.
"I can work with you, and even help you win this ritual."
Kayneth's tone was so flat it was almost cold.
He was neither showing weakness nor begging for mercy, merely stating the course he considered most suitable.
"But you must also enter into a Self-Geas Scroll with me."
A Self-Geas Scroll.
The most binding form of magecraft contract within the Clock Tower system.
Both parties staked their own Magic Circuits, engraving the contract's terms at the level of the soul.
If violated, the binding force would fall directly upon the party in breach.
Kayneth took a roll of parchment from his coat's inner pocket.
He had prepared it before coming.
"The contract has only two core terms."
He spread the parchment on the coffee table.
"First, the Holy Grail ritual must not cause too much of a disturbance when it is completed."
"You must guarantee that the ritual's conclusion will not produce any abnormal phenomena significant enough to attract the attention of ordinary human society."
"Mystery must not be exposed. Otherwise, the Clock Tower will not stand idly by."
Kayneth looked at Tokiomi Tohsaka, his expression growing considerably more serious.
"You probably don't know this, but when your Servant's Noble Phantasm shot into the sea last night, the Clock Tower's leyline monitoring system had already recorded the abnormal fluctuations.
They are still investigating and have yet to pinpoint either the location or the cause."
"But if the Holy Grail's descent produces another release of magical energy on the same scale, or an even greater one, they will certainly set their sights on Fuyuki City."
Kayneth tapped the parchment with a finger.
"When that happens, the Clock Tower will send large numbers of Sealing Designation Enforcers, and perhaps even other Lords, here to directly prevent the Holy Grail ritual from being completed."
"If matters deteriorate to the point where Barthomeloi must be deployed, the Tohsaka Family and the Einzbern Family will no longer be listed in the Clock Tower's records as partners, but as destabilizing factors that need to be dealt with."
As Tokiomi Tohsaka listened, his expression remained composed throughout.
But his mind was working quickly.
Kayneth was telling the truth.
Although the Tohsaka Family managed Fuyuki City's leylines, they were only a mid-ranking family within the Clock Tower's power structure.
If the Holy Grail ritual caused too great a disturbance and exposed Mystery, the Clock Tower certainly had both the ability and the willingness to send people directly to put an end to it all.
"And the second term?"
"Second, my Lancer and your Caster will join forces and prioritize eliminating the Einzbern Family's Saber."