It was fast. In fact, it was entirely too fast.
If someone had to put this encounter into words, they would say the fight hadn't even begun before it abruptly ended. But could it even be called a fight?
Nobody watching really knew. If an observer had to describe the sequence of events, it would be reduced to a single sentence: Lancer dashed forward, and then he was shot out by a blinding red light in an instant.
Thick, choking dust began to roll over the warehouse district, settling over the dropping debris and the pulverized concrete.
The structural walls of multiple storehouses had been completely wiped out, the heavy metal machinery inside destroyed.
When the crimson glare finally faded, all that was left behind was Gojo Satoru standing casually in the middle of the street, and Lancer… somewhere at the far end of the devastation.
At the very end of the gouged-out trench, buried in the rubble of shattered concrete and torn corrugated steel, lay the spearman.
His state was, to put it mildly, disastrous.
Lancer, was a Heroic Spirit whose parameters and combat style were absolutely not adapted for endurance.
His entire foundation relied on his unparalleled agility, his Eye of the Mind, and his immense skill to weave through attacks, evade damage, and strike back with lethal precision. He was a skirmisher. A duelist designed to deflect and counter.
He was absolutely not a Berserker or a Saber, classes built to tank massive amounts of raw damage and keep standing.
Taking an attack like Cursed Technique Reversal: Red at point-blank range was the absolute worst-case scenario for a Servant of his build.
Red wasn't a simple explosion of fire or kinetic force. It was the convergence of divergence, the physical manifestation of pure, spatial repulsion brought into reality by the Limitless.
The attack hadn't just hit him; it had violently repulsed his very existence from the space he occupied, tearing the air open and crushing him backward with an overwhelming, inescapable pressure.
Lancer's broken body lay flat on the cold concrete. His ribs were shattered, caved inward from the sheer force of the spatial blast. He was coughing up thick globs of blood, his breathing horribly ragged and shallow. His internal organs were undoubtedly ruptured and bleeding.
But... he was a Heroic Spirit. He was somehow still alive, still breathing.
All of this had happened because of two fatal mistakes. The first was his own: underestimating Gojo heavily, thinking too little of the strange, weaponless man, and aiming to deal with him swiftly so he could return to duel with Saber.
The second mistake, however, was far more fatal, and it belonged entirely to his Master. Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald, arrogant in his pedigree and overly reliant on the standard conventions of the Holy Grail War, had ordered Lancer to keep his Noble Phantasms hidden.
The spears remained wrapped in their magical amulets to conceal their true names and properties, preserving the element of surprise for his eventual battle against the Saber class as it was the strongest.
By keeping his ultimate trump cards sealed, Lancer had been stripped of the anti-magic properties that might have given him a fraction of a second to mitigate the disaster or even cutting his hand or negating Red completely.
Space warped with a subtle pop.
Gojo bypassed the distance entirely, instantly teleporting to where Lancer lay gasping for breath. The white-haired sorcerer stood over the broken knight, looking down as Lancer's eyes glared up at him, a heartbreaking mix of warrior's pride and bitter, agonizing frustration.
Lancer hadn't thought it would be this fatal. The passive healing magic supplied by his Master was already trying to do its work, knitting tissue back together, but the damage was too extensive. It would take time. Time he definitively did not have.
Gojo stared down at him, his Six Eyes effortlessly reading the futile flow of healing mana trying to piece the Servant back together.
"I don't think those spears of yours were just for show," Gojo said, his tone conversational, completely devoid of malice or anger. "Were you underestimating me so much that you didn't even use your weapon's properties?"
He tilted his head, making a genuine, tactical observation. "You really should have used everything you had from the very start. I don't know why you'd hold back like that, especially in a death match."
Lancer gritted his teeth, blood staining his handsome features. His fingers twitched violently as he desperately tried to force his ruined muscles to lift his body, but he couldn't even raise his shoulders off the rubble.
Gojo calmly leaned down and grabbed the shaft of the long spear, Gáe Dearg, that was lying in the dust just inches away from Lancer's right shoulder.
He didn't examine the spear. He didn't try to deduce the identity of the hero or unwrap the amulet to see the blade. He knew the Heroic Spirit was about to die anyway, so there was absolutely no need to familiarize himself with the weapon's lore.
He simply hefted the weight of the spear in his grip, testing its balance.
Lancer's eyes widened in sudden, horrifying realization. He pushed his iron will to its absolute limits, his muscles screaming in agony, but the harder he tried to move, the more blood poured from his ruptured joints and internal wounds. He tried to speak, to demand an honorable end, to say something, anything.
"W... wa…"
But he only choked, coughing up another mouthful of blood, unable to form the words.
Gojo looked down at him and sighed softly. "It was a death match. I think one of us had to die here." He shrugged slightly. "Don't look at me like that, you're making me look like the bad guy here. When I'm really just trying to be merciful by ending your pain and suffering."
Gojo didn't wait any longer.
With a smooth, effortless, and terrifyingly casual motion, he drove Lancer's own spear straight down into his chest. The heavy blade pierced flesh and bone with a sickening crunch, thrusting forward until it impaled the Heroic Spirit's heart, the tip of the spear burying itself deep into the concrete beneath him.
There was no healing him now.
Lancer's body violently seized. His back arched off the ground for one final, agonizing second, a last choked gasp of blood spilling from his lips before his head fell back against the rubble.
Gojo stood over him, holding the spear firmly for a moment before releasing his grip. He looked down at the fallen knight.
He was dead. The edges of Lancer's physical body began to break apart, turning into glowing, golden particles of light. Within seconds, the dissolution spread, his entire body breaking down into mana and scattering into the night wind.
Lancer was out. The first blood of the Fourth Holy Grail War had been drawn for Gojo.
Suddenly, sensing a massive, incoming surge of energy from above, he instantly warped backward, reappearing a safe distance away.
Not a moment later, the sky tore open.
A massive object descended from the heavens accompanied by the blinding flash of purple lightning and the deafening roar of thunder.
It slammed into the exact spot Gojo had just been standing, instantly destroying the concrete and sending shockwaves rippling through the earth.
"That really was not what I was expecting when I wanted to observe," a booming, larger-than-life voice echoed from the epicenter of the lightning. "And have more Servants gather here. Not at all."
As the dust and electricity cleared, the source of the destruction became visible.
From its appearance, it was an antique war chariot with two heavy prows. But warhorses were not yoked to its shaft. Instead, two handsome, divine bulls with muscles rippling like ocean waves stamped their hooves.
Their hooves ploughed through the empty space, pulling the luxurious, splendidly crafted chariot forward.
No, the chariot was not merely floating in the air. Its heavy, spiked wheels boomed loudly against the atmosphere; it was not solid ground, but crackling lightning that the bulls stood upon.
Every time the bulls' hooves and the chariot 'stomped' upon the empty sky, violent violet lightning spread out like a spider's web, rolling the air upward with deafening, atmospheric roars.
The sheer volume of mana spurting from the lightning alone was probably equal to what Lancer or Saber could only unleash if they used every single ounce of their strength.
Only a Servant's Noble Phantasm could be so undeniably strange and emit such an ocean of prana. Without a doubt, another Servant had decided to join the fray.
A few moments later, footsteps echoed rapidly down the street. Saber and Irisviel finally arrived at the edge of the cratered battlefield, their eyes instantly locking onto the newcomer.
"Rider..." Saber muttered, her invisible sword raised, her breath slightly winded from the sprint.
Gojo looked up at the man standing tall on the chariot. "Rider, huh... now that entry was something. Something really close to what I would have done if I was a Rider." He casually crossed his arms. "Well, now that Lancer is dead... I guess there are only five Servants left to deal with."
Saber repeated, her emerald eyes snapping to Gojo. "He is... dead…"
"Lancer is dead," Irisviel breathed out. She wasn't asking a question. She was affirming it, staring at the small crater where the he laid previously.
Before the tension could escalate further, the massive man standing atop the lightning-wreathed chariot bellowed out to the entire harbor.
"Put down your weapons! A king has come!"
His casual, commanding bellow was just as loud and earth-shaking as the thunder his chariot emitted.
Gojo tilted his head, whistling softly as he took in the sheer size of the red-haired giant.
The blinding flash of lightning faded, leaving the air smelling sharply of ozone. The rumbling echo of thunder was suddenly broken by a highly out-of-place sound.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Gojo clapped, seemingly for saying something he forgot to say.
"Just to inform you, that entrance was cool and all but was also way too reckless. You know, just driving like that could get your license suspended immediately. I mean, I'm much more forgiving, so I'm not gonna make a big deal out of it... but someone else totally would have, you know."
Rider looked down from his magnificent chariot, entirely unbothered but utterly bewildered by the white-haired man's words.
"What?!" Rider boomed, his thick brow furrowing. He couldn't understand half of what Gojo was saying, nor could he fathom why this man was talking about 'licenses' in the middle of a battlefield.
Deciding to simply ignore the incomprehensible babble, Rider reached up and scratched his thick, red beard. A look of genuine, heavy disappointment crossed his rugged face.
He glanced over to the massive crater at the end of the street, where the golden particles of Lancer's spirit were still scattering into the night wind.
"It seems I arrived too late," Rider sighed, his broad shoulders slumping slightly. "What a shame. I was observing from afar on the bridge... I truly wanted this to be a fun, lasting duel. But it seems it got finished way too quickly."
Behind Rider's massive, tree-trunk-like legs, a much smaller figure peeked over the wooden rim of the chariot. It was Waver Velvet, Rider's Master.
He was clinging to the frame of the chariot, his knuckles white, trembling violently from head to toe as he looked at the servants gathered.
"Idiot... idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot..." Waver muttered under his breath, his teeth chattering in absolute terror.
Rider barely paid his Master's panic any mind. Without even looking down, the giant Servant reached down and lightly flicked his middle finger against Waver's forehead.
Smack.
"Ow!" Waver let out a pained yelp, instantly letting go of the chariot to clutch his rapidly swelling forehead with both hands.
"Quiet, boy," Rider said simply, his tone not angry, just firm. "A king must address his fellow warriors properly."
Down on the street, Saber was not amused by the comedic display.
She took a firm, deliberate step forward, placing herself squarely between Irisviel and the two highly unpredictable Servants. She gripped the hilt of her invisible sword so tightly her leather gauntlets creaked. Her emerald eyes bypassed Rider entirely, fixing with a burning, absolute intensity onto Gojo.
"You showed no honor," Saber stated, her voice laced with cold, biting reprimand. "He was already defeated. He could not move. Yet you struck him down with his own weapon while he was completely helpless."
Gojo stopped clapping. He turned his attention to the silver-armored knight, tilting his head slightly to the side. He didn't look offended by her harsh accusation at all. If anything, he looked genuinely puzzled.
"Honor?" Gojo repeated, tasting the word as if it were a foreign concept. "He was coughing up blood and his internal organs were entirely crushed. He was in pain, excruciating pain, might I add. I just did him a favor so he didn't have to lay there in the dirt and suffer his last moments."
Gojo offered a small, exasperated shrug, gesturing to the ruined street around them. "Besides, isn't this how a 'Holy War' is supposed to be? Or did I get the wrong info here? You guys are making me confused..."
Saber gritted her teeth, her knightly pride deeply offended by his casual dismissal of a warrior's final moments. "A knight's death should have dignity!"
"Well, I'm not a knight," Gojo replied flatly, his tone perfectly matter-of-fact. "I could have buried him, I guess, but he already turned into glitter and disappeared."
Before Saber could argue further and let her righteous anger boil over into an attack, Rider slammed his heavy, bronze-armored foot down onto the floor of his chariot.
THUD.
The loud, reverberating impact echoed across the silent docks, instantly drawing the tension and attention of the entire battlefield back to him.
"Enough of this!" Rider yelled, spreading his massive, muscular arms wide to encompass the whole harbor.
"The spearman fought well, and he died on the battlefield. That is the natural, inevitable fate of all warriors! But I did not come down here to mourn him! I came here to make an offer!"
Irisviel, still standing safely behind Saber's protective presence, looked up at the giant man in sheer confusion. "An offer?"
"Yes!" Rider proclaimed proudly, puffing out his massive chest, his red cape billowing majestically in the sea breeze. "I am Iskandar, King of Conquerors! I am participating in this Holy Grail War under the Rider class!"
Waver let out a strangled, dying squeak from the floor of the chariot as his Servant casually threw away the ultimate rule of the Grail War, but Rider completely ignored him, his booming voice carrying across the night.
"But I ask you both, Saber, and you, the Caster! Will you forfeit your claim to the Holy Grail, join my ranks, and share the joy of conquering the world with me?!"
…
A/N: Yo author here. It seems there are many question and thoughts and aome being why didn't the spears work hope you got your answers in this chapter.
And i think i already mentioned this… it is strictly fate anime as i have only watched anime, i read novel for some bts scenes and all but thats all.
If you have any more questions regarding that you can ask it away: