A few minutes later—
Kayneth: …?
Good news:
His judgment was right. The Matou were indeed different from the Einzbern and the Tohsaka.
Bad news:
Compared to the Matou, the other two of the Three Families looked like fresh recruits.
Standing at the Matou gate, Kayneth stared at:
Scáthach, holding a crimson demonic spear—the same figure who, judging by the previous night's battle after Diarmuid's retreat, had likely fought the A+++-across-the-board monster to a draw;
Morgan, who appeared the instant they arrived and activated a spellwork that clearly surpassed the current era, sealing off the surroundings;
And Kama, peeking out of a second-floor window like she was watching a show.
In that moment, Kayneth—thanks to his exceptional sensitivity as a Master—could tell at once that all three were Servants, and he honestly felt so ridiculous he could almost laugh.
"Master… do we fight?"
Diarmuid, who had sensed lethal danger the moment Scáthach appeared, asked while bracing for impact.
"Waver—use a Command Spell to reinforce Rider's Noble Phantasm."
Kayneth decided instantly. "We're past the point of leaving normally."
"…"
Waver didn't move.
Kayneth didn't even need to ask—one second later he understood why.
"Command Spells are good things," a voice said lightly. "If you can save them, you should."
A hand landed on Waver's shoulder. Another landed on Kayneth's.
Between them, a man had appeared—so seamlessly that even their Servants hadn't detected him.
Baiye.
He used Rune magecraft to bind their bodies, cutting off their ability to act.
"I was going to let you roam for a few more days," he said, smiling. "Didn't expect you to come knocking yourselves… so. Want to talk?"
Kayneth & Waver: "…"
Diarmuid & Iskandar: "…"
…They didn't even notice him until their Masters were already taken.
A short while later, in the Matou reception room—
"…You're the Matou head?!"
Kayneth's eyelid twitched violently.
He had come demanding negotiations with the Matou head under the name of the ninth Archibald—but what he got was Matou Sakura, sleepy-eyed from being woken up, carried out in Baiye's arms.
"Yes."
Sakura nodded. "If you have anything to say, just tell Brother Baiye. He can fully represent the Matou."
Kayneth: "…"
As if I needed you to tell me that.
Seeing the man who'd demanded to see her didn't dispute her words, Sakura turned around and wrapped her arms around Baiye's neck, nuzzling into him and breathing in the scent that made her feel completely safe.
Before long, she fell back asleep.
"What, exactly, is this Holy Grail in Fuyuki?"
Kayneth took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, glanced at Morgan and Scáthach, and asked Baiye.
After being shown, again and again, the methods of the Three Families—or of someone like Baiye who could represent them—Kayneth would have been a fool not to realize where the true core of this war lay.
"As for that question," Baiye said, "I can only tell you: if you know, you know. If you don't, it's best not to ask. The water is too deep for ordinary magi. Knowing too much won't do you any good.
"If you make it out of Fuyuki alive, just treat this Grail War as a rare memory."
He delivered that entire wall of empty rhetoric with a straight face—then pivoted hard:
"Of course, if you insist… I can explain everything. From the Three Families' original intention a century ago, to why this ritual drew the Second Magician's attention, to the 'accident' in the Third Grail War decades ago that fundamentally changed the Grail's nature.
"Want to hear it?"
For a split second, the thought I do want to hear it rose—
Then a cold, alien malice crawled up Kayneth's spine.
It was unmistakably not coming from Baiye—or anyone in the room.
Kayneth jolted like he'd been struck, shaking his head rapidly.
Waver was even faster, already shaking his head like a toy drum.
"What a shame. I wanted to run a tiny experiment with you two~"
Baiye released the Rune restraints and gestured toward the door.
"If there's nothing else, please."
"…You're just letting us go?"
Kayneth frowned, suspicious.
He'd expected that at minimum he'd have to withdraw from the war and sign some kind of ransom contract. He'd even prepared himself to die here.
The whole point of insisting on negotiations with the Matou head had been to secure the customary magus-world right: if he died, the Archibald family could still buy back his Magic Crest.
"Should I keep you for dinner or something?"
Baiye arched a brow, then tossed them a final "kind" warning:
"The Tohsaka Servant you met today is Gilgamesh—fifth king of Uruk in the Early Dynastic period of Sumer—manifested as Archer.
"His treasury doesn't just hold the prototypes of later Noble Phantasms—derived from the concept of the 'original text of human wisdom'—he also possesses a sword said to be capable of cutting open the world.
"Next time you face him, don't get yourselves sent off in two moves."
"Cut open the world, huh?"
Iskandar grinned, clearly entertained.
The four departed.
Inside, Baiye met Morgan's gaze.
"You felt it too, right?"
"From those two's reactions, there's no other possibility."
Morgan nodded.
When Baiye had offered to explain the Grail's "true face" and they refused, he'd said he regretted not getting to run an experiment—
But the "experiment" had started the moment he asked.
Their initial impulse to listen, followed by a sudden panic so strong it overrode rational choice, proved their final decision wasn't purely "their will." It was an instinctive avoidance response triggered by warning.
And since the room at that moment contained only Baiye, Morgan, and Scáthach—
Who else could deliver a warning in a way so subtle that even the three of them detected nothing unless the targets exposed it?
What a mystery.
So that's the thread I finally get to tug…
Baiye handed Sakura to Morgan, stood at the window, looked up at the sky, then down at the earth.
Entering that ineffable state of Unity of Heaven and Man, he pressed his will into the world itself:
Come out, or I'm printing the Fuyuki Grail's process and principles onto flyers and scattering them everywhere.
"Don't."
"We mean you no harm."
Two voices overlapped in Baiye's ear—one airy and crystal clear, the other an echoing resonance like billions speaking at once.
....
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