Chapter 131: Zōken Matou
Whitebeard stood at roughly 6.6 meters tall — nearly seven meters. The tallest trees in the surrounding grove topped out at maybe five or six meters.
In other words, the tallest tree nearby didn't even reach Whitebeard's head.
A figure like that, materializing in the Fate world — in what the Group called the Type-Moon world — stood out in a way that defied description.
"A bit of an oversight, that. Whitebeard's build is so far outside the norm that Alaya is going to notice fast. It might have clocked us the moment the dimensional gateway opened."
Ryū stepped through the gateway and caught sight of that familiar silhouette, quietly resigned.
Not that he regretted it. There was nothing to regret. If they needed to leave in a hurry, a thought was all it would take. Worst case, they grabbed Sakura on the way out.
"Oh my~ the Admin came too?" Yukari's expression shifted to one of theatrical surprise, then just as quickly settled into the knowing smile of someone who had already figured everything out. "Naturally, naturally. After all, our Admin has famously dedicated himself to building a magnificent ha— I mean, Sakura-chan is one of your most beloved Group members. Of course you'd come personally. Don't worry, Admin! As your faithful and devoted loyal youkai, even if you had your eye on every female spirit in Gensōkyō, this humble servant would never dream of obj—"
Ryū's expression darkened by several degrees.
A harem. What harem. When did I ever —
And since when did this gap youkai pivot to playing the doting lackey? She used to enjoy trading barbs. Hand her a Moderator badge and suddenly she's performing devoted servitude? There was a scheme somewhere in this. There had to be.
Ryū refused to believe that a youkai who drove conversational vehicles off cliffs on a regular basis had undergone a genuine personality transformation. She was running some kind of angle. Whatever she said, he wasn't taking it at face value.
Never trust a Youkai Sage to have a shred of integrity.
Before Yukari could continue, another voice cut in with a note of genuine dismay.
"Wait — am I actually the last one here?!"
Kaguya Shinomiya had assumed she'd moved quickly.
Apparently not.
"Gurararara! Little Kaguya's arrived! That's the Admin, Lady Yukari, Little Tornado, and Little Kaguya — all five of us, accounted for!"
Whitebeard's laugh rang out across the grove, scattering birds from their branches. Crossing into an unknown world was, for a man who had spent his life on the sea looking for adventure, genuinely exciting. He was in his seventies, technically — but he didn't feel it. The explorer's spirit that had driven him onto the seas had never gone quiet.
Arriving in a brand-new world, Whitebeard was in excellent spirits.
As, more or less, were all of them.
Ryū nodded. "Now that we're all here — our goal is to eliminate Zōken Matou as fast as possible. Whatever butterfly effects that causes, we'll deal with later."
When a Group member's safety was on the line, Ryū wasn't going to wait around until Zōken had committed the same atrocities as in canon before acting.
He turned to Sakura, whose small face was visibly tense. "Sakura — you know where the Matou estate is?"
She startled, then quickly gathered herself and nodded rapidly.
"I... I asked Father where it was, like Yukari-nee-san told me to. She said if I asked that way, he wouldn't get suspicious."
Ryū's mouth twitched slightly.
That Youkai Sage was teaching a small child social engineering.
Technically a white lie, yes. But still. If Yukari Yakumo somehow corrupted Sakura's personality in the process —
He let himself briefly imagine a Sakura whose disposition had been shaped by Yukari's influence.
...Frightening. He refused to complete the mental image.
"Father said last night that to get from our house to the Matou estate, you go past... then once you're in that residential area you turn in... and then it's the twelfth house from the left."
"A bit complicated, but I have the rough idea," Tatsumaki said, with a small, thoughtful nod.
From Sakura's description, there was some distance between the Tohsaka and Matou properties. Not that distance meant anything to this particular group. Once Yukari had a feel for this world's spatial geometry, opening a gap boundary and stepping through directly would be trivial.
She knew that, of course. They'd discussed it from the start. And she'd been the first one through the gateway.
About a minute passed in silence.
Then Yukari lifted her hand from Sakura's head, extended a pale finger toward the empty air in front of her, and went still. Behind her clear eyes, something moved — colors shifting, information cascading at high speed, as though enormous calculations were racing through her mind.
Her hand swept upward.
A massive gap tore open in the air — a gaping black void, its inner walls lined with dozens of crimson eyes.
She exhaled slowly, and the smile returned to her face.
"The spatial geometry of this world is somewhat more intricate than little Kaguya's — it actually gave this one a solid few minutes of intensive calculation. But if the location Sakura-chan provided is accurate..." She tilted her head toward the gap. "The other end of that should open directly into the Matou estate."
Yukari's ability was, in a word, indispensable. For the purposes of getting somewhere quickly, it was flawless.
Fate world. Matou estate. A basement on the dimmer end of dim.
A few candles cast barely enough light to navigate by. The air in the underground chamber held a strange, layered smell — and beneath everything, half-heard, the faint rustling of things that crawled.
In one of the darkest corners of the basement stood an old man.
Ancient was the more accurate word. His face was carved with deep, heavy wrinkles; his back curved in a slight stoop; his head was entirely bare. He leaned on a cane. His clothing looked unremarkable at a glance — a dark, near-black green kimono, wooden sandals — but there was something in his eyes, something in the cast of his expression, that made looking directly at him feel like touching ice.
Zōken Matou.
Or, in his truest name: Makiri Zolgen.
A man who had lived for five hundred years.
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