Mayuri neither chanted nor deployed a magecraft circle.
She simply pointed her finger at the target in the courtyard.
The next second, something in the night sky above the Tohsaka Residence answered her.
Scarlet-gold lightning fell from the sky.
It was too fast. Before the sound could spread, the pillar of light, thick enough for a person to wrap their arms around, had already struck the skull-masked figure in the courtyard.
The black-clad figure still had a hand stretched toward the gem core. The next moment, scarlet-gold light swallowed them.
There was no explosion, nor any scattering arcs of electricity.
No crater appeared in the ground, and the surrounding trees did not catch fire.
That body of Hassan of the Hundred Faces did not even have time to scream.
The lightning lasted less than half a second before dispersing.
The courtyard fell quiet again.
The gem core still floated there unharmed. There were no scorch marks on the trees, nor cracks in the paving stones.
Where the black-clad figure had stood, there was only empty space.
It was excessively clean.
Standing on the roof, Mayuri slowly lowered her finger.
She looked into the darkness around the residence.
A crow-shaped familiar hid in the treetops to the east. An insect-shaped familiar crouched atop a utility pole to the northwest. In the shadows beyond the southern wall, several small spirits were also peeking.
Mayuri left them alone.
She simply stood on the roof and let those familiars get a clear look at her.
Moonlight outlined her black-and-gold Astral Dress, and her long, pale-gold hair swayed a few times in the night breeze.
Three seconds later, her figure scattered into motes of light and returned inside the residence.
Fuyuki New City, Hyatt Hotel, the luxury suite on the thirty-second floor.
Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald sat in a high-backed chair before the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a leyline survey report.
The footage transmitted by his familiar was replaying inside a crystal ball.
Sola-Ui sat on a sofa across the room, flipping through a magazine.
Kayneth was not looking at the crystal ball.
His gaze rested on the three small magecraft reactors in the corner of the suite.
They were spell-support devices he had brought from the Clock Tower, their cores made from Albion's remains.
Albion was a great dragon from the Age of Gods that had died beneath the Clock Tower.
Magi had been using its bones, scales, and crystallized magical energy for many years.
There was little to fault in the stability of reactors made from such materials.
Yet just now, when that scarlet-gold lightning had fallen in the direction of the Tohsaka Family's residence, the output readings of all three reactors had fluctuated simultaneously for 0.2 seconds.
Kayneth put down the report.
The blue glow of the runes on the reactors' surfaces reflected in his pale-purple eyes.
His pale flaxen-blond hair was neatly groomed, his dark-blue formal coat was uncreased, and his white-gloved hands rested on the armrests. His posture was as meticulous as ever.
Only his brow furrowed briefly.
Kayneth had only seen reactors of this kind malfunction twice before.
Once was when the main body of the Spirit Tomb beneath the Clock Tower had produced a resonance pulse.
The other was when a magus at the level of a Sealing Designation had unleashed their trump-card spell less than five hundred meters away from him.
The Tohsaka Family's Servant.
That Servant who looked like a blonde girl.
A Phantasmal Species? A demigod? Or something older than either?
"Kayneth? What's wrong?" Sola-Ui looked up from her magazine.
"Nothing."
Kayneth picked the report back up, but his eyes did not settle on the paper.
"The Tohsaka Family's Servant took action and destroyed that Assassin."
"Assassin? Doesn't that mean it's already over? One team of opponents is out."
"...Yes. Out."
Kayneth said no more.
He replayed the footage in the crystal ball once again.
The girl stood on the roof, extended one finger, and scarlet-gold lightning fell from the sky.
After watching it, Kayneth shut off the image.
His fingers tapped lightly against the chair's armrest twice.
On the outskirts of Fuyuki, on the second floor of a residential house.
Waver Velvet crouched beside the window, both hands gripping the sill, his face almost pressed against the glass.
From here, he could see the skyline toward Miyama Town.
That scarlet-gold light had shone for less than a second, but Waver's reconnaissance familiars stationed outside the Tohsaka Residence had recorded everything from its appearance to its disappearance.
His face was pale.
Behind him, a burly figure who occupied nearly half the room sat cross-legged on the carpet, holding a game controller that looked completely out of proportion with his build.
On the television screen, a pixelated race car crashed into a guardrail and bounced back and forth, producing monotonous electronic noises.
Iskandar was no longer watching the game.
Just over ten seconds earlier, the two Thunder-Hooved Steeds bearing the power of Zeus's lightning within his Noble Phantasm, Gordius Wheel, had stirred deep inside his Spirit Origin.
They had not wanted to charge out.
They had been afraid.
Those two divine beasts were far more sensitive to lightning than ordinary detection magecraft.
When the scarlet-gold lightning fell, they had reacted to that distant presence.
Iskandar tossed the controller onto the carpet.
"Boy."
Waver turned away from the window. His dark-brown hair had already been messy, and now it looked even more disheveled.
"What happened just now?"
"Th-the Tohsaka Family's Servant took action."
Waver's voice had yet to steady.
"One hit. It destroyed Assassin outright. In the footage the familiars sent back, that Servant was standing on the roof and only held out one finger. Then the lightning fell. Assassin disappeared without even struggling."
Iskandar narrowed his eyes.
"One finger?"
"One finger."
The room fell silent for several seconds.
Iskandar folded his arms across his chest, his rugged face less cheerful than usual.
He did not fear powerful enemies, but this situation did warrant some further thought.
"Boy, do you think there's anything fishy about this?"
"Fishy?" Waver froze for a moment.
"Assassin invaded the Tohsaka Family's barrier, then their Servant killed Assassin on the spot. There's nothing wrong with that sequence."
Iskandar raised a hand and scratched his chin.
"But the Tohsaka Family is one of the Three Founding Families. They've been established in Fuyuki for hundreds of years. Their defensive barrier shouldn't be that easy to enter. Assassin managing to sneak inside is strange in itself."
The expression on Waver's face went from pale to bewildered.
"You mean?"
"Either that Assassin was absurdly stupid, or this whole thing was a show put on for everyone else."
Iskandar grinned, without much friendliness in the smile.
"I'd put my money on the latter."
Fuyuki New City, a certain arcade.
At midnight, only three or four young people remained in the arcade, playing games through the night.
Neon tubes hummed on the ceiling. The background music from the various machines mingled together, enough to give anyone a headache after listening too long.
Before a large fighting-game cabinet, a blond boy who looked twelve or thirteen operated the joystick with one hand.
On the screen, his character's combos were unreasonably fast, pinning the opponent down so completely that they could not move.
The boy's other hand rested in the pocket of his short black-and-gold formal attire.
The screen illuminated his bright-gold short hair, giving it a cold sheen.
His crimson eyes shifted away from the screen.
The boy looked toward the night sky outside the arcade.
Something had just receded from the ordinary night sky above Fuyuki City. It was far away, over by Miyama Town.
But that release of power, lasting less than half a second, had still fallen within his perception.
The boy's pupils changed shape.
The originally round pupils contracted and lengthened into vertical diamonds.
That was the outward sign of the divine portion of the Age of Gods' King of Heroes' bloodline awakening.
His crimson diamond-shaped pupils looked toward Miyama Town.
He released the joystick. The word "PERFECT" appeared on the fighting-game screen, and the opposing AI character lay motionless on the ground.
His Noble Phantasm-Sha Naqba Imuru-released a tiny fraction of its power.
There was no need to activate it fully.
He only needed to see clearly what that brief instant had left behind.
Scarlet-gold lightning. The Spirit Origin fluctuations of an angel. The Servant framework of the Caster class.
The Omniscient Star pieced these fragments together, revealing the general picture.
The boy withdrew his gaze and looked back at the game screen.
His diamond-shaped pupils returned to normal.
He smiled.
"Interesting."
The boy's fingers returned to the joystick.
A new fighting-game match began.
The Tohsaka Residence, reception room.
Mayuri's figure condensed out of the air, her feet landing on the soft carpet with a faint sound.
Standing on carpet in her black high-heeled combat boots was more comfortable than standing on roof tiles, at any rate.
Tokiomi Tohsaka was still sitting in his armchair.
His posture had barely changed since she left.
The black tea on the coffee table was still steaming.
Even this Master's expression had barely shifted, as if Mayuri had merely gone into the next room to fetch something.
Mayuri returned to the sofa, sat down, and took a sip of her own black tea, which had cooled a little.
"Master."
"Yes?"
"Are these things you asked me to do really useful?"
Tokiomi Tohsaka turned his head.
"If Assassin shows up even once after this, won't that make the whole performance pointless?"
Mayuri set down her teacup, sounding as though she were complaining about overtime.
Combined with her fifteen-year-old girl's face and large rose-red eyes, she did not sound particularly intimidating.
The corner of Tokiomi Tohsaka's mouth moved, then quickly returned to normal.
"It's all right, Caster."
His voice remained steady.
"Assassin's role was never direct combat to begin with. They exist for only two purposes: to gather intelligence on the other factions for us, and to probe the other Servants' trump cards when necessary.
"I never expected Hassan of the Hundred Faces to accomplish anything on the front lines."
"As for this performance-what matters isn't whether the others believe Assassin is truly dead, but giving Kirei Kotomine a reasonable excuse to withdraw from the war."
"As long as he is in the church, the other Masters will have no reason to remain wary of him."
Mayuri said nothing, more or less accepting that explanation.
"Tomorrow is the first official day of the Holy Grail War."
Tokiomi Tohsaka slipped the ruby in his hand into his pocket.
"Tomorrow night will most likely be anything but peaceful. We'll act as circumstances dictate. If we get the chance to gather all the other Servants on a single battlefield, that would be ideal. Then we could annihilate them all in one fell swoop."
Mayuri turned to look at her Master.
"Master, aren't you putting a little too much faith in me?"
Tokiomi Tohsaka looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
"As far as I know, hasn't the Fuyuki Holy Grail War never once run normally to its conclusion?"
"The first ended inconclusively because the three families fought among themselves. The second was a complete mess. The third outright broke the Holy Grail System. Aren't you afraid something unexpected will happen this time too?"
Tokiomi Tohsaka paused.
He looked at the Servant opposite him, who appeared only fifteen but spoke far too casually to seem like a young girl, a somewhat complicated look in his blue eyes.
"Please rest assured, Caster."
His tone did not change.
"In this Holy Grail War, our advantage is even greater than you imagine. Especially since-we have a trump card like you."
Mayuri looked at him for two seconds, then turned her gaze back to her teacup.
"Suit yourself."
Fuyuki New City, Kotomine Church.
The Gothic stone church stood in the dead of night.
On the stone steps before the main entrance, a tall man in black priestly robes stood ramrod straight, facing the faint candlelight inside the church.
Before Risei Kotomine, the overseer of this Holy Grail War and also his father, Kirei Kotomine formally announced that he was relinquishing his right to participate, withdrawing from the Fourth Holy Grail War, and requesting the neutral protection of the Holy Church.
Risei stood before the altar, his graying hair lit by candlelight, looking considerably older.
He looked at his son kneeling before him and announced in an aged voice that he accepted the request.
After Kirei entered the church, the doors slowly closed.
In the darkness around the church, familiars shaped like crows, insects, and motes of light recorded the scene, then dispersed into the night, delivering the news to their respective masters.
Inside the church, the candlelight flickered a few times.
Kirei Kotomine rose from the floor and brushed nonexistent dust from his knees.
Risei looked at his son, his lips moving, but in the end he merely sighed.
"Go and rest, Kirei."
"Yes, Father."
Kirei Kotomine turned and headed toward the clergy quarters at the rear of the church.
His footsteps echoed rhythmically through the stone corridor.