How beautiful.'
Thus thought a certain young girl as she gazed upon that which sprawled before her.
It was a city she was familiar with.
It was the city where she was raised. Ever so many buildings towered over her, scraping the vast sky above with such vigor that they seemed ready to swallow her up too.
A pair of six-lane causeways met at a mighty intersection. The primary north-south and east-west arterial roads of the City of Snowfield met there, not far from the city center. From the skies above, the roads would seem to form an enormous crucifix, identifying the nexus of the city.
"What is the little girl doing in the middle of the street and where is everyone?" Mashu questioned with a worried tone.
"I believe that she is not in the real world, Miss Kyrielight," answered Holmes.
"How can you tell, Holmes?" Da-Vinci asked with his raised eyebrow.
"I simply observed it, Da-Vinci, but it's hard for me to explain. It would be better to watch," Holmes replied as he puffed his smoke pipe.
An observer looking only upon those grand roadways might well think himself to be in a
city as grand as New York or Chicago. Indeed, those roads raced past the city limits into the multifarious natural environments surrounding Snowfield with such ardor, that it was as though they had asserted that they were a part of those surroundings—nay, that they were in fact the culmination, the perfection of all nature.
However, something was amiss and the girl found this city, this familiar city, to be beautiful precisely because something was amiss. She stood at the center of the enormous intersection, which was itself at the center of the city. It was a scramble intersection, allowing pedestrians to cross it in every which way—but, of course, vehicular traffic would resume at some point, forcing one to vacate the road.
And yet, she had stood there for more than ten minutes. The traffic lights had cycled any number of times. Yet, a silence reigned. Not a single car honked at her. And that was as it should be. For there was not a single human anywhere to be seen.
An empty intersection.
A road devoid of vehicles.
Did she notice that it was silent? Then again, did she even notice that it was odorless?
From the middle of the road, it was clear that the causeways lacked any human presence.
The girl imagined an asphalt-colored red carpet, a most contradictory thing. She was overwhelmed by the beauty of the complex of tall buildings before her. In the absence of people, concrete—that symbol of humankind— seemed like a beautiful object of nature, sprung from the Earth's surface. If a building were a tree, what a grand, harmonious forest this city would be. In that case, the city hall tower, the tallest of them all, would be a veteran among them.
She did not know why she was there.
Hence, she wandered the town in search of an answer.
Watching the screen, Atalante had become concerned for the little girl as she wanted to help and hug her gently, but she could not because she had no ability to travel to that world just like other servants (Mostly). "She is lost and confused."
"What a poor girl…" Achilles agreed with Atalante.
But that brought sadness unto her.
Though she found this world beautiful in its lack of people, she also found it lonely.
At first, she felt nothing but loneliness; within a few days, though, she had grown accustomed to it.
Indeed. She had wandered this empty town for a long, long time.
After about three months, she had stopped counting the days.
Some of the servants became shocked at the revelation of the little girl in the strange city-like world.
"Three months?" Gabby voiced out quietly in shock.
"The detective is right. This is not a real city but an imagination." Moriarty agreed with Holmes.
"She could be in the dream or worse…"
Ritsuka was hesitant to finish his sentence as he was afraid to think about it but he did not know that he was being noticed by some of the audience around him. They probably knew what he was going to say but did not finish his sentence as they either were in Ritsuka's position or stood silently.
She was never struck by hunger, though she knew not why. During the day she would wander the town, and come dusk, she would sleep. At night, lights would go on in the empty buildings. She would look up at the night sky and be comforted by the stars. Few things are more unsettling than witnessing lights go on in a building empty of people, but she had long since grown used to it, faced with the absurdity of a city empty of people.
As loneliness departed her heart, the void it left was filled by the pleasure she felt from being in this empty city. After looking about the city for a while, she lay down in the middle of the intersection and idly gazed up at the night sky.
'Daddy. Mommy.'
The faces of her parents came to mind.
'I'm sorry. I couldn't do it right.'
Atalante's cat ear twitched, signaling that she became a little upset by the little girl's apologetic words towards her parents. She narrowed her eyes in disappointment as she believed that her parents did not do a good job of taking care of her. They might be bad parents to her but she could not conclude without evidence.
Achilles noticed Atalante's behavior. 'Oh boy, Sis is upset. It must be her instant as a child caretaker or parents.'
Her first instinct was to apologize. But then, she realized that she wasn't even doing anything she should apologize for, and Two old emotions welled up within her. One was loneliness, stemming from the impossibility of encountering anyone else. The other was—
Snowfield Central Hospital
An enormous edifice stood in the central district of the City of Snowfield, covered in white paint. At a glance, it looked very much like an art museum. In fact, however, it was a large hospital, furnished with the finest equipment in the city. It was a castle of healing. Multitudes of patients knocked at its gates, seeking treatment from surgeons and psychosomaticism and all sorts of other specialists. Of course, not all the patients came for elective procedures. Many were brought to the hospital for other reasons.
"Wow, I'm almost going to mistake this hospital as a museum because of its architecture," Gabby said in embarrassment, watching the screen.
"Umu, Same as you, Master," Nero agreed with Gabby.
"To be fair, who is the architect with the wrong mind to build this?" Da-Vinci voiced out with her disappointed look.
"Da-Vinic, I don't think you're able to locate him or her for it," Ritsuka sweatdropped at Da-Vinci.
"But still…" Da-Vinci displayed her pouty face, amusing some servants including the Duo Masters and Mashu.
"...I am afraid that I must inform you that it will be difficult for your daughter to regain consciousness from this state," said a doctor to a man and a woman.
They glanced at each other. They were probably in their thirties and seemed to be from East Asia. They seemed more than a little flustered.
"As of today, our daughter has been hospitalized for one full year... Is that a sign that her condition has taken a turn for the worse?" asked the man, in fluent english.
"One year…" Jeanne mumbled in shock, praying for the girl to regain consciousness.
"It must be a serious illness," Nightingale mused as she closely listened to the interaction between the Doctor and the girl's parents.
"...Physically speaking, there are no symptoms that would suggest your daughter's condition is worsening. Nonetheless, it becomes more difficult to recover from a coma as the duration of the coma increases."
"It's not life-threatening or serious…" Nightingale mumbled although she continued to listen to gather more information.
"Oh boy, She has become serious…" said Beowulf.
"Tell me about it, Beowulf. Anything related to disease and medicine will always cause her to be that way," Robin sympathized with Beowulf as he and the gang, consisting of Geronimo, Billy, and Rama, along with the duo masters and Mashu were in the America Singularity with Nightingale. They have a tough time restraining her from cutting and killing anyone and them because they were sick.
"Heh, what an amazing but weird time," Rama chuckled, agreeing with Robin.
Sita giggled at Rama as she could not imagine what Rama had gone through by Nightingale because his chest was plunged by Cu Alter in the America Singularity. Nightingale was probably trying to heal her husband even if mean she would kill him. Since she was here, she would not let her do that to him, but she had to take care of his well-being as well.
The patient had been under her care for a full year now and had yet to recover consciousness. She had entered a vegetative state. Only her body continued to develop, and that too, at a slow pace.
She was just ten years and three months of age.
Who knows what happened to her. One day, she abruptly lost consciousness and wouldn't wake up, and so, her parents, terrified, brought her to this hospital.
An examination revealed that her body was studded with lesions, particularly around her cranium. After performing a biopsy on one of the lesions, it was found that they were caused by an unknown strain of bacteria. The doctors all panicked, fearing an epidemic within the hospital. In the end, the bacteria turned out not to be contagious, leaving it a mystery as to how the girl herself became infected in the first place. The doctors considered having a hospital with even more advanced facilities examine her, but for whatever reason, they were denied access, and so, the girl remained under observation in this municipal hospital.
"How interesting. It must be a newly discovered illness that never caused an epidemic or is contagious." Asclepius mused, intrigued with the mysterious illness.
Medea chuckled at Asclepius but found the information out of the ordinary because she thought this might be related to magecraft. Yet, she needed to continue to watch to confirm if her suspicions were true.
"We have not observed any changes in the state of the bacterial infestation. Unfortunately, this means that the bacteria will continue to impede her cerebral function going forward. The bacteria have not caused so much damage as to induce necrosis; nonetheless, they have severely impeded her mental functions." The doctor spoke as soothingly as she could.
"So, it must be something to do with mental health…" Nightingale spectacled the girl's new unknown illness.
"Is that so..." replied the woman, worry permeating her voice.
"Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that recovery is impossible. There have been cases where a patient has been in a vegetative state for over 10 years before regaining consciousness. As we learn more about the genome of the bacterium, more treatment options will become available to us. Please, don't lose hope. She was doing her best to keep their spirits up, but—"
The patient's father looked ever more disconsolate.
"Never mind her consciousness... are her reproductive functions still intact?" he asked.
"...Pardon?"
Some of the audience were confused at the father's question about his unconscious daughter's reproductive system.
"What the hell is he asking that question?" Gabby asked with her raised eyebrow.
"I don't know, but I get the feeling that her parents don't care about her at all," Ritsuka replied with his narrowed eyes.
"Something wrong with their damn brain?" Modred growled furiously at the parent's unusual behavior.
Atalante glared at the parents as she was in the same thoughts as Ritsuka. They made her blood boil and she would dare to kill them if she was summoned to that world.
For a moment, she didn't understand what she was being asked. She simply could not grasp what he had meant by "never mind her consciousness". For a short while, there was a powerful silence.
Before long, the man spoke again, unwilling to let the silence drag on. Rephrasing his question in greater detail, he said, "I would like to know whether or not her ovaries and uterus or at the very least, just her ovaries—are developing normally."
"Er... well, the lesions are only inhibiting growth in the part of her brain to which they are
localized, so there haven't been any adverse effects on her other organs, but..." The doctor just told him the facts as they were, still unable to figure out why he was asking about that.
However, Upon hearing her response, the patient's parents looked at each other once again. Their faces lit up.
"Really!? Well, in that case, thank you ever so much! We will continue to pay her hospital bills as we have been, so please, continue taking good care of our daughter!"
"I'm sorry? That's not... I mean..."
"We are truly grateful to you, doctor. There, you see, dear? You don't need to worry about that anymore."
"Right you are, honey. Let's get going... we need to make preparations for tonight."
"How fucking despicable are they? They do not care about her as a person because I think they saw her as their damn tools," Modred voiced out in anger as she gripped her hand into a fist, wanting to punch the girl's parent's happy smile off their face. This reminded her of the small fragment memory of her birth mother from the pan-history, Morgan, telling her to kill Artoria.
"I know, Modred. I'm the same as you, but you need to restrain your anger," Gawain said, calming Modred.
"Tch, fine," Modred replied as she knew Gawain was correct about her anger even though she does not seem to find it too troublesome.
Morgan, Queen of the Britain Lostbelt, was surprisingly disguised with the girl's parents' behavior towards her. Although she was ruthless towards everyone under her rule, she at least had a heart to care for a few people, thanks to the duo masters' influence, especially her adopted daughter, Baobhan Sith, being summoned by them.
"What good parents they are," Gabby sarcastically remarked.
Mashu was upset at the behavior displayed by the little girl's parents and stood silently. Her hand was suddenly by Ritsuka and massaged gently. This made her relax to forget her upset. She turned to him with a smile. "Thanks, Senpai."
"You're welcome," replied Ritsuka.
Atalante continued to glare but with much hatred in her eyes due to the parents and Modred's furious words about them. She truly wished to rip them into pieces until nothing was left but a pile of shredded human flesh and bone.
"Mommy?"
Snapped out, Atalante quickly turned around to see the concerned Jack and Nursery Rhyme. She realized that she displayed her rage and might have scared them. Her cat ear dropped in shame. However, she became surprised as she was being comforted by them by grabbing her both hands and she honestly felt nice from it.
Artemis giggled at Atalante being solaced by Jack and Nursery Rhyme while Achilles smiled and Orian, who was in his human form, smirked while shaking his head in amusement.
The young couple waltzed out of the hospital in high spirits, leaving behind the utterly perplexed doctor. She had no idea what would be appropriate to say to them, and so, she just stared at them as they departed.
"Goodness me... What was the matter with them...?"
Perhaps the shock of finding their daughter comatose had left them all muddled up. The next time they came to the hospital, she would have to recommend that they attend counseling.
"I don't think counseling would heal them…" El-Melloi said with a frown, speculating that the parents might be related to Faldeus and his organization.
As she thought about the peculiar couple, she stepped through the exterior door to the sterile room. After being sprayed with a disinfecting gas and scoured with ultraviolet light, the interior door opened, to reveal a single bed. On the bed lay a sleeping girl with an IV drip. Though it seemed at first glance as though she was merely asleep, her face was emaciated and lifeless, and it did not seem as though she would ever regain consciousness.
"What a poor girl to be in the coma," Mashu said as she felt sympathy for the girl.
"...Even if your parents abandon you, I won't. I'll never give up on you."
"At least, the doctor cared for her," said Ritsuka.
Atalante smiled while Nightingale felt proud at the woman doctor's caring words with her smile.
The only sound emanating from the girl was the sound of her breath. As the doctor looked at her, she checked her IV drip and her vitals with a renewed determination.
Suddenly, she discovered something unusual.
"...oh?"
She noticed the abnormality while she was repositioning the girl. Something red appeared on the right hand of the motionless girl.
"What... are these...?"
She took a closer look at the girl's hand. There, she saw crimson sigils that reminded her of loops of chains.
"A tattoo...? But who?"
Access to the girl's room was strictly controlled, and there was no way anybody could have brought tattoo implements inside. Besides, when she had checked on the girl that same morning, there was certainly nothing out of the ordinary. A chill ran down her spine.
"Is this... some kind of... prank?"
And though there was no way she could even have known that magi actually existed— Those marks were, without a doubt, Command Spells.
"I guess I'm right about the girl's parents," El-Melloi sighed with his narrowed eyes.
"You're not the only one to find out about that, brother," replied Reines.
"I know… Children like her shouldn't be forced to take part in the Holy Grail Wars due to their innocence, but something tells me that the screen is going to show us about the girl and her parents."
"Mhm, I hope that this will be less unpleasant."
The other was a blend of pain and fear. She was still a young girl, but when she remembered what her parents had done to her when she was younger.
That was certainly not cruelty. Rather, it was rationally-applied love.
"We will make you into an illustrious mage."
They showered her with love as they spoke those words.
"So the girl's parents are magi… Oh god, why does every family, who are mages, are an asshole and prideful on the screen?" Gabby questioned while rubbing the bridge between her eyes in annoyance.
"To be fair, Miss Rutherford. Most of the mages within the community are a little too prideful on their own as they do not want to embarrass themselves and make anyone, who were less than them, out of fool although there are a few of them who were kind-hearted," Holmes replied, puffing his smoke pipe.
"Holmes is right about it," El-Melloi agreed with Holmes.
Though she was young, she understood that.
And yet, the pain ate away at her.
'The pain, the pain, the pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain,'
It dominated her childhood. Even though she must have had pleasant memories, happy memories, and sad memories, they were all written by overwhelming pain.
"I'm sorry. I'll do it right, so..."
"Oh goodness, what did her parents do to her?" Boudica questioned with a frustrated tone.
Some audience members understood Boudica's frustration as they desired to know about it too.
Even when she tried to forget, she could not overcome the pain. If it had been mere cruelty, she may have been able to seal all of that away. Unfortunately for her, she really did feel that her parents loved her. Indeed, that was why she could not flee. She could do nothing but suffer through it. From a young age, she believed that she could reciprocate her parents' love by suffering. Alas, she did not understand that her parents did not love her as a person.
"So young to be misunderstood suffering as her parent's love," Irisevel commented with her sorrowful tone at the girl.
Atalante could not bear to hear the girl's apology cry for her parents and does not know how long she would handle it.
They only loved her as a vessel for the continuance of their family line—as their future in the world of magic. Her parents both carried a magical pedigree, and indeed, were among those that made off with some of the machinery underlying the actual Holy Grail War.
The knowledge they gained was relevant not just to the Holy Grail War—they had also acquired part of a certain mage's system of entomomancy, and quickly adapted it to their own use.
Their goal: to develop a new way to modify the flesh using even smaller bugs.
"My hunch is right. Her family must be Kuruoka that the police chief mentioned," said Holmes.
"They are the ones responsible, like Faldeus, to copy the third Fuyuki Holy Grail Wars, but I'm more puzzled to know that they have acquired a technique from the Matou Family," Added El-Melloi with confusion.
Ishtar and Parvati flinched at the Matou family being mentioned by El-Melloi.
EMIYA sighed in annoyance that Kuruoka had gained the knowledge from Matou Family, which were the worst in his opinion, and hated to recall the darkest moment from his past including his sympathetic for Ishtar and Parvati because he and their vessels along with Artoria had gone through hell in the fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail War.
And after decades of trial and error—they were finally on their way to perfecting a sort of Pseudo-entomomancy. They used magically-modified bacteria that would better their host. If they were properly used in the body of a young mage, they would amplify the mage's Magic Circuits. That was their plan.
"Just great, we're going to watch a modern version of Matou Family," Ishtar grumbled in annoyance as she does not want to see another Matou Family because one family was bad enough that they did their evil deed to Parvati's vessel to be a vessel for the corrupted Holy Grail.
Parvati gained a sad expression upon hearing the information about Kuruoka's goal. She knew that their daughter would suffer the same way as her vessel does. Their method was no different from Matou Family but instead of Insert, they utilized a magecraft modified bacteria to amplify their daughter.
Once they had perfected their techniques, they chose their firstborn daughter as their distinguished first test subject. She experienced great agony. Though her body was scarcely altered, her Magic Circuits had been amplified beyond measure.
As she grew up, her Magic Circuits approached completion. All that was left was for her to inherit the magic of her family. Then, their plan would have been a perfect success, but Unluckily for them, they lost control of some of the bacteria, and so the still-young girl was deprived of her consciousness.
In order to ensure that it would remain possible for their daughter, with her amplified Magic Circuits, to succeed them, her parents hospitalized her. Of course, by this point, her parents had no interest in her as a person.
"You monster…" Atalante groaned in fury at the Kuruoka family.
Irisviel and Kiritsugu were glad that they were different from the Kuruoka family because they saw their children as a person, not a tool to use to win the Holy Grail War. They hated to imagine they were in the Kuruoka family's position and felt disgusted by it. They have already failed as parents, but they would not repeat it if they were given a second chance.
"It's inhuman for them to experiment on their daughter," Da-Vinci said with disgust.
"Agree, Da-Vinci," Mashu agreed with Da-Vinci.
As yet unaware that her parents had all but forsaken her, she wandered on and on in the world of her dreams, a cleft between life and death. Perhaps because of how the bacteria modified her, her dreams were far and away more realistic than any ordinary dream. In the end, though, it was but a world in which she could neither taste nor smell.
It was but a dream.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm sorry for hurting...!"
As she experienced flashbacks to her past, she screamed out into the empty world. Though she brimmed with magical energy, she lacked knowledge. She was a witch—but a powerless one. In her dream, she mustered all the strength she had—and she screamed. On and on. As if to support her, her altered body made her Magic Circuits run wild in the world of her dreams.
As if they recognized they were going to vanish; as if they were mere children crying out. "Don't leave me!"
Every cell in her body cried out.
"I'll do it right! I will, I'll bear the pain!"
And though she did not know what it was she should do right. "So please, please don't
leave me! Don't leave me...!"
Some audience members were saddened by the girl's cry in despair for her parents to save her but to no avail. They hated to see her being suffered by them who have no heart to see her as a human being but as their tool. It was both painful and pitiful to watch.
Atalante could not stand still to listen to the girl's crying but was able to handle it well. Medea felt sympathy for her watching and listening to the screen and she cannot blame her entirely just because she was weak but she had a weak heart to kill the children.
Then, she saw a flash of light. There was a mighty gust of wind—a roar in a soundless world. She didn't know what was going on. She leaped to her feet, and looked around the intersection and—
All of the roads were covered in a black fog. Something had changed, but she couldn't understand what it was. As she stood there utterly stupefied, a voice rang out. It was a grating sound, like the scraping noise of swarms of insects battling one another. And yet, those were words—words with meaning.
"I ASK: ARE YOU MY MASTER?"
This caused half of the audience to jump up a little while making them shiver from the inhuman voice.
"What the fuck was that?" Gabby asked while being slowly recovered.
"That voice belonged to the little girl's servant because her cry and suffering had summoned the servant unknowingly," replied Holmes.
"I'm mostly certain that her servant is bad news," said Moriarty.
"I think we're too quick to judge her servant, Moriarty," Helena countered Moriarty.
"My dear Blavatsky, I'm never wrong with my words when I feel cold from hearing it," Moriarty responded truthfully with a look of fear in his eyes, shocking Helena.
She could not have known what those words meant, and yet— That Servant was bizarre
beyond measure. To begin with, "he" lacked a persona—let alone the nature of a Hero.
After all, "he" was not a human in the first place. When "he" was granted knowledge by the Holy Grail, however, "he" appeared as a Servant, in the form of a formless mass of awareness. "He" had neither emotions nor even internal monologue. "He" was a mere mass of knowledge about the Holy Grail War, created by the system— something like a robot.
The words "he" spoke were like dread incarnate, but— she was not scared.
Someone was there, so she would no longer be lonely. Something had changed in her unchanging world.
"It's very sweet, but I felt a menacing presence from watching," Boudica commented with uncertainty.
"I'm glad that I'm not the only one," said Tamamo, sensing a bad vibe from the screen.
Merlin stood quietly and concerned towards the screen. He did not sense any magecraft or divinity on the girl's servant as he felt cold from watching on the screen. As if he was looking at the pitch of black darkness or the presence of Death itself. Unobserved by him, the Round of Table and Fairy Knights were shocked to see him in that state but when Baobhan turned around to Morgan, she was even more shocked to see her in the same state as him.
'Why is mother very scared?' Baobhan thought with a sense of fear at Morgan on the screen. She never saw her being agitated but quickly believed that the girl's servant was not good news but the worst one.
She was so happy about that—that she looked up at the skyscrapers shrouded by the black haze and timidly told 'him' her name.
"Who are you? My name is Kuruoka Tsubaki."
And so, she became the distinguished first Master of the false Holy Grail War. None could have known of their contract, forged in a dream, and— Indeed, in the outside world, the girl remained unconscious.
"... I don't know how to feel about the girl and her servant," Medea commented about Tsubaki's Servant with a conflicted feeling.
"She's just too young, Medea, She does not know what is right and wrong or about Holy Grail War and Servant," Atalante reassured Medea, not wanting her to think badly of Tsubaki.
"Sorry, but I couldn't help myself because I felt like Death was standing in front of me," Medea replied honestly with sweat on her forehead.
Kuruoka Residence, Snowfield
"It's about time for Faldeus to issue his declaration."
After returning from the hospital, the Kuruokas were in high spirits, getting ready for the ceremony they would conduct that night.
"The ley lines of this area should soon be at their mightiest. Then, I will receive my Command Spells. Once I have them, everything will be in place."
"I wouldn't be sure about that, you bastard," Ritsuka said with a hint of venom in his voice.
"Senpai…" Mashu called with her concerned tone.
"Sorry, Mashu. I wasn't myself for a moment," Ritsuka apologized as he felt that he had scared Mashu.
"It's alright, Senpai. I understand your feeling and I'm in the same boat as you," Mashu dismissed Ritsuka politely.
"You're not the only one, stick boy, cause' I want a piece of my mind on that family," said Gabby.
Ritsuka groaned, "Don't call me that nickname."
"Hehe. Too late," Gabby responded with her smirk.
"Plus, we've even prepared a Noble Phantasm as a relic... and if it came down to it, we could use it as a weapon ourselves."
"Indeed we could. If we are to call forth Shi Huangdi, we must be prepared to demonstrate a proper degree of respect."
Shi Huan was very disguised that his pan-history self was going to be summoned by Kuruokas Family using their daughter as their tool. If he was the same as him, he would have beheaded them upon finding out the truth when summoned. He truly hated their despicable action of using a child's life to summon him.
Their daughter was not a matter of discussion at this point. Apparently, they were preparing to summon the most celebrated figure in Chinese history.
Unfortunately for them, all their preparations would be fruitless.
Not because their unconscious daughter had taken the Command Spells that would have been theirs. If that were the only issue, they could well have received a different set of Command Spells. In the end, they did not receive any Command Spells— but they did receive something else.
Sensing something unusual, the husband looked at his right arm.
"Mm...?"
There was a black spot. At first glance, it looked like a bruise. He frowned, wondering if he had bumped against something.
"What the hell is that?" asked Billy.
"Not sure, but my guts tell me that this is not a bruise at all," Robin replied, becoming cautious suddenly.
He looked over to his wife. "Dear, what do you think of this... hey!?"
He was shocked.
Similar black spots appeared all over her face and her arms—and then, she collapsed to the ground, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
This scared some audience at the sight of the mother being covered all over by black spots and falling to the ground in a second.
"Yep, I was right," Robin said in shock.
"Holy crap, it turned into a horror scene!" Gabby commented in shock before asking, "What the hell did it come from?!''
"It looked sort of rash, Master. It must be a new disease in the area or unknowingly created by their artificial bacteria," Asclepius reckoned about the black spots.
"Either way, the parents are already too late to be saved," said Nightingale.
Atalante does not know whether to feel glad to see them die for their inhuman action or awful to see them suffer slowly before dying.
"H-hey...!?"
He tried to get to his wife, but his field of view grew mushy and indistinct. Everything split into a rainbow of colors and fell upwards. By the time he realized that it was he who was falling, it was too late. He did not even have the strength to stand. As he lay on the verge of unconsciousness, he understood what was happening. Magical energy was being sucked out of his body and carried off to somewhere else. As it was not his actual life energy that was being stolen, he would not die from this. However, he would certainly fall into a stupor.
'This can't be. If someone... attacks us now... No, what if... somebody... already...'
Even as he fell into eternal darkness, his mind was full of thoughts about the Holy Grail War. Not once did his daughter cross his mind.
Some of the audience got the feeling that it was Tsubaki's servant's doing but wondered what it was capable of upon seeing it in action on the screen.
A few minutes later, both of them leaped to their feet as though nothing had happened.
Their bodies were still covered with black spots.
"...Come to think of it, today is Tsubaki's birthday, isn't it?"
"Ah, that's right, dear! I've got to bake a cake!"
They were conspicuously unwell, and yet they spoke calmly. And about something out of the ordinary for them, at that. Indeed, they had lost whatever personalities they once had and they became living dolls, who lived their lives just as their daughter wanted them to.
Upon watching the screen, Asclepius became overly cautious and deduced that Tsubaki's servant could construct and manipulate a disease including controlling the bodies. This caused the Argonauts' crews to be a little afraid upon seeing his expression that her servant was not the worst news but a disaster.
Nightingale does not know what she was feeling, but she could tell that she was honestly feeling terrified. She wondered why she felt that way when watching Tsubaki's parents being raised from being unconscious and acting unnaturally. She cannot tell if they were already dead from being infected by Tsubaki's servant. Nonetheless, it frightened her.
She danced with "him". She danced with "him".
To forget the time she spent awake.
"He" danced with her. "He" danced with her. To grant her every wish.
"So, Tsubaki's servant was only following her command, but does not know to execute properly," Holmes deduced Tsubaki's servant behavior.
"For a lack of behavior, her servant could be the most dangerous of all," added Moriarty.
"Yay! Thank you! Daddy! Mommy!"
"It's okay, Tsubaki. You did a good job."
"That's right. You're our precious little treasure."
Having received such a wonderful present, she gaily frolicked about her house. After having her fun for a while, she smiled at the mass of black fog that stood next to her. "Thank you for bringing my mom and dad here!"
"Huh, that's very sweet for her servant… despite turning on her parents forcefully," Gabby commented with uncertainty as she could not find the right word to say it.
The Servant did not even nod in reply. "He" merely continued to exist.
It was unexpected for the audience by Tsubaki's servant appearance and it completely scared almost all of the audience to death except the mechanical Servants, like Charles Babbage and Katou Danzou.
Illya, Chloe, and Kuro were being embraced by Irisevel to smooth their fear and prevent them from crying while Sitonai was trying to act brave despite her fear. Jeanne Lily Alter was hugging Jeanne Alter tightly as she was too afraid to watch. Jeanne Alter could not do anything to push her away because she was one of many scared audiences,
"What the fuck?!" Canies cursed loudly as she swiftly stood up, pushing the folded chair to fall, and accidentally summoned her spear and shield out of nowhere.
"Canies, put your weapons away…" Chiron commanded Caenis even though he clearly understood her reaction but did not want her to hurt anyone around her.
Snapping out of the thought, Caenis looked down to see her weapons in her hands and quickly made them disappear. She lifted her head and clicked her tongue in annoyance to cover up. "Sorry."
"Is that servant?" asked Mashu, scared.
"I believe so, Mashu," Da-Vinci replied with her grim expression.
The sights of the real world were projected into her dreams. Perhaps that was the power of the magical energy that had blossomed within her while she was unconscious. Given that it is impossible to affect the real world from within a dreamscape, however, magic used to project the real world into a dream world was useless; a line of research that few magi would bother to pursue. The Servant merely facilitated the girl's unconscious magic.
"Not only her command, but that Servant was also following her conscience and executed it without hesitation," Holmes said in his serious tone.
"He" manipulated her parents in the real world so that they would behave just as she wanted them to.
Of course, "he" also absorbed their magical energy. "His" instincts compelled him to do so. "He" could not understand human emotions. "He" merely possessed the knowledge. And indeed, because of that, and because of the great strength "he" had, "he" made the girl into the greatest and worst dark horse of the Holy Grail War.
"He" rode on the wind and the waters and the birds and the people and hence, it was appropriate for "him" to be of the Rider class, for "he" had ridden "his" way to dominance over the world.
All of the audience found that Tsubaki's class servant was a rider, but the description of it had made them feel a little frightened. Amakusa, however, had already found out the identity of her servant with the information given and honestly does not like it at all because her servant acted as one of many common and basic cataclysms to the entire humankind.
Much more importantly, however—
"He" was an embodiment of calamity, and the people gave "him" an alias that reflected that. Perhaps that spurious assignment of a personality to "him" was the most important reason that "he" was summoned as Rider.
At one time, "he" let loose the Black Death, which killed thirty million,v and at another time, under the name of the Spanish Flu, "he" killed fifty million.
"He" was the horseman who brought calamity to all. His alias: Pestilence.
"Tsubaki had summoned the freaking Horsemen of the Apocalypse!" Gabby shouted in shock at the identity of the Rider Servant.
"Oh my lord," Jeanne said with her entire body trembling and her breathing became harder to breathe.
"Jeanne!" Sieg shouted as he hugged Jeanne tightly and rubbed her back smoothly to comfort her. "Breathe in and out, Jeanne. I'm here with you."
"Thank you, Sieg." Jeanne smiled.
Asclepius and Nightingale had already displayed their resentment towards Pestilence as he was an embodiment of illness, disease, and pandemic, and already killed a hundred of million lives for thousands of years. They did not like him for one bit and considered him to be killed on sight if he was ever summoned to Chaldea. He could endanger the duo master and the rest of the staff and possibly infect them. They would never let them near him at all cost.
"I should pray for the entire population of the city to be safe," Martha said, feeling dread for the citizens of Snowfield's well-being.
As to whether anyone would recognize what "his" alias is, or indeed, that "he" had been summoned as a Servant in the first place—
Either way, the false Holy Grail War was finally on its way to becoming a maelstrom of chaos.
Quite a shock, did it? A tragedy turned to horror," said Moriarty.
"Yeah, and I was not expecting Tsubaki's Rider is one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse," Ritsuka replied as he slowly recovered from his shock.
"Unfortunately, Rider is the most dangerous servant in the Holy Grail War, but it only followed Tsubak's order so he might be harmless for a moment unless someone did something stupid to or near her," Amakusa explained.
"I agree with you, Amakusa, and I cannot imagine the body count on the street done by Pestilence," Moriarty agreed with his grimed expression.
Amakusa nodded before turning to see Semiramis, who was unable to hide her feared expression. He became concerned and grabbed her hands. "Are you alright, Semiramis?"
Semiramis turned around to Amakusa to reply to cover her expression but failed with a little shutter. "Of course, I am… I'm perfectly fine."
"If you say so, my Queen," Amakusa chuckled with a smile as his hand still held Semiramis, making her blush.
"All that is left is Lancer and we all pretty much know who he is," Gabby said loudly to all of the audience.
Most of the audience nodded in response while Gilgamesh smiled widely as he was excited to see the last servant on the screen and his best friend calmly smiled, admitting that he was going to be on the screen and wondered about his interaction with him in the Fake Holy Grail War.