(Attendance… plz…)
….
The lavish suite on the top floor of the Fuyuki Hyatt Hotel was, without a doubt, the most expensive and luxurious accommodation the city had to offer. It was an extravagant penthouse with sweeping panoramic views, pristine leather furniture, and crystal chandeliers.
Previously, this suite had been a fortified hideout. It was meant to be their grand command center, the impregnable base from which Lord El-Melloi would strategize, dictate the flow of the Holy Grail War, and inevitably seize the ultimate victory that was his aristocratic birthright.
But now? Now it was nothing more than an incredibly overpriced hotel room. Because they were officially out of the Grail War. They hadn't even lasted a single, meaningful confrontation.
Kayneth stood out on the large balcony, the freezing night wind whipping at his impeccably pressed suit. He was looking down at the glittering city lights spread out below him, but he wasn't really seeing the city at all. His wide, trembling eyes were continuously, obsessively locked onto the back of his own right hand.
The three jagged, blood-red strokes of the Command Seals that are on his skin. His Servant, the Heroic Spirit of the Lancer class, was dead. The legendary warrior he had summoned to bring glory to his name and secure the victory that rightfully belonged to him... had been swatted out of existence.
Not only were his grand plans entirely shattered, but his Servant hadn't even lasted a whole day. Lancer hadn't even put up a proper fight. He had been blown away by a single attack, and was then brutally finished off with his very own weapon while lying helpless in the dirt.
It was a staggering humiliation to the proud name of Archibald. It tore at his very being.
And to sprinkle salt upon the gaping, bleeding wound of his pride... the one responsible for his current, pathetic state was his student. Waver Velvet. A third-rate, completely delusional amateur who had somehow managed to become a Master in this war.
A thick, throbbing vein popped up on the back of Kayneth's gripping hand. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. He had always despised that insolent, low-pedigree boy, but now the hatred burned inside him like more uncontrollable.
Not only did Waver steal the incredibly rare catalyst that Kayneth had painstakingly secured, the mantle of Iskandar, the King of Conquerors, but he had the absolute gall to participate in the war himself, parading around Fuyuki to heap further humiliation upon his lord.
To Kayneth's mind, everything that had gone wrong tonight was entirely Waver's fault. If that thieving little rat hadn't stolen his original catalyst to begin with, Kayneth would have summoned the mighty Rider. He wouldn't have been stuck with a fragile, weak spearman who couldn't even endure a single strike from a Caster.
"I will kill him," Kayneth muttered to the wind, his voice a ragged, trembling hiss as he stared at his bare hand. "I will kill him for taking what is mine. He will regret the day he stole my catalyst and humiliated me."
At this exact moment, Kayneth could easily be called a failure. He was a disgruntled, defeated nobleman desperately grasping for a way out of his disgrace. And in his desperate, frantic mind, he had already found one.
He would pin the entirety of this failure on Waver Velvet. He would track the boy down, slaughter him like the dog he was, steal the Rider Servant for himself by forcefully transferring the contract, and rejoin the Holy Grail War to claim his victory… that in his mind was his to begin with.
"Kayneth..."
A woman's cold, sharp voice broke through his manic, spiraling thoughts, halting his vivid fantasies of murdering Waver mid-way.
He stiffened. The woman standing at the balcony's threshold was none other than Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. The daughter of the head of the Department of Eulyphis. His fiancée.
Kayneth couldn't bring himself to turn around and face her properly. The mere thought of what she must think of him, of how she must be looking at him right now, made his stomach churn with shame. He kept his gaze firmly angled downward, staring blindly at the balcony railing so he wouldn't have to meet her eyes.
And he was right to avoid her gaze. The woman standing behind him wasn't looking at him with pity, care, or the gentle concern of a loving partner. She was glaring at the back of his head with an intense, biting anger and a deep, simmering irritation that she felt would only truly go away if he dropped dead.
Because Kayneth's unique magical setup dictated that she was the one providing Lancer with mana this entire time, Sola-Ui had felt the exact moment the magical connection ripped apart. She had felt the tether snap. She knew exactly what it meant.
"Lancer is gone," Sola-Ui said. She didn't ask it as a question; she stated it as an absolute, damning fact. Her voice wasn't soft or comforting. It was laced with a chilling, barely contained fury at the thought of the handsome knight's demise.
Kayneth gritted his teeth, his hand trembling violently as he tightened his grip on the silver railing. He didn't want to say it out loud. He desperately didn't want to admit to his high-born fiancée that he had lost, and not just lost, but lost so incredibly pathetically.
Unable to accept the fault as his own, his wounded pride lashed out, looking for the easiest target.
"He was weak," Kayneth spat, his voice dripping with venom and aristocratic disdain. "That useless, pathetic spearman. He engaged a Caster-class Servant in open combat, and he was killed in a single strike. One strike! He couldn't even dodge it, nor could he defend himself properly. He just took the blow and died like a fool!"
Kayneth continued to violently blame the fallen knight, projecting his own failures onto the Servant who had died following his restrictive orders.
Behind him, Sola-Ui actually twitched.
Her perfectly manicured fingernails dug into her palms. To hear this pathetic, cowardly man hurl insults and blame at the noble, beautiful knight who had ignited such a fierce, unprecedented passion within her frozen heart... it took every single ounce of her aristocratic restraint not to lash out.
If she gave into the dark, violent urges swirling in her chest, she would have killed the man standing in front of her for taking Lancer away from her.
"Keep telling yourself that," Sola-Ui said. Her voice was terrifyingly quiet, carrying enough freezing disdain to convey exactly what she thought of him and his pathetic excuses.
"You..." Kayneth muttered, glancing back over his shoulder.
He didn't say it in anger. He said it in a wounded, almost pleading tone, realizing that even his own fiancée was blaming him for this disaster. And in his mind, he had no fault at all! If it had been absolutely anyone else in the Clock Tower who had dared to speak those dismissive words to him, Kayneth would have challenged them and killed them where they stood, even if it brought humiliation to his name.
But Sola-Ui was the only exception. She was the one and only person in the entire world Kayneth could not bring himself to hate, or even be truly angry at. He simply swallowed the bitter insult in silence.
Disgusted by the sight of him, Sola-Ui turned on her heel and walked back inside the hotel suite. She didn't want to look at his face for another second, lest she do something she couldn't take back.
Left alone on the balcony, Kayneth resumed his frantic pacing.
Waver... how far would you go to ruin me? Kayneth thought, his breathing growing ragged. If he hadn't stolen it... I will take it back... I will take all of it back!
He stopped pacing abruptly and looked down at his empty right hand once again. The humiliation was burning him from the inside out like acid. He was a Lord of the Clock Tower. He was a genius magus of the highest possible pedigree, destined for greatness since the day he was born.
He could not, he would not, accept being thrown out of the Holy Grail War on the very first night by a combination of a weak, useless Servant and a thieving, third-rate student.
…
Next Morning:-
The streets of Fuyuki City were already bustling, filled with the people going about their mundane, daily lives. Working men and women in neat suits hurried toward the train stations, some looking utterly exhausted before the day had even begun, while others chatted and smiled over steaming cups of coffee.
Flocks of teenagers in crisp uniforms laughed and shoved each other as they made their way to school. It was a picture-perfect, ordinary Wednesday morning.
And drifting through this sea of normal, blissful ignorance was one miserable kid who was definitively not going to school.
Waver Velvet, a recognized Master in the Fourth Holy Grail War, was dragging his feet down the paved sidewalk. He looked less like an elite magus and more like a walking corpse. Dark, heavy bags hung beneath his eyes. His shoulders were slumped, and every step he took felt like he was trudging through thick mud.
To say he was tired would be a great understatement. He was profoundly stressed, and more accurately, he was absolutely terrified.
When Waver had stolen the catalyst, a scrap of the legendary conqueror's mantle, he knew exactly what he was getting into. He knew the Holy Grail War was a death match. But he had just wanted to prove his worth. He wanted to prove to the Clock Tower, to the established aristocratic families, and to his incredibly haughty teacher that he was right. That bloodline wasn't everything. That he wasn't just some pathetic, untalented kid.
But who could have possibly predicted that he would end up directly facing that very same teacher in this war? Waver had assumed that without the catalyst, Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald wouldn't be able to participate. He had no idea his teacher had a backup relic.
He could have stayed hidden. He could have fought the entire war from behind without showing face, and Kayneth would have never known that it was his own student who had stolen the catalyst.
But no. His Servant had blown that wide open.
Now, his teacher knew exactly who had stolen from him. Kayneth was out of the Grail War, having lost his Lancer in the most pathetic way imaginable, and he blamed Waver for absolutely all of it.
Waver was horrifyingly certain of what he had heard echoing from last night. Lord El-Melloi had sworn, with terrifying, venomous conviction, that he was going to hunt Waver down, kill him, tear the Command Seals from his flesh, and take Rider for himself.
With the active threat of other Masters and Servants roaming the city, and a homicidal, genius ex-Master out for his blood, Waver felt like he was walking around with a giant, glowing target painted on his back.
So why was he strolling outside in broad daylight?
Because his Servant wanted to go for a walk.
Rider had decided he wanted to explore the modern world and fully experience the era. He had bought that ridiculous mail-order t-shirt, but the giant conqueror didn't possess any modern pants.
And since Waver absolutely refused to let his Servant casually stroll through the streets of Fuyuki wearing nothing on his lower half, Waver had been forcefully dragged out of his safehouse to go shopping for clothes.
Specifically, pants that could actually fit a man built like a brick wall, which were entirely unavailable at the normal stores they had checked so far.
"Idiot... stupid, muscle-brained idiot..." Waver muttered under his breath, his eyes glued to the pavement as he sulked.
It was all his fault. All of it. Rider just had to fly down there in a grand chariot of lightning. He just had to announce his True Name and class to everyone. And then... and then...
"Waaaaahhhhhh," Waver groaned, a pathetic whine escaping his lips as he buried his face in his hands.
Just as he was spiraling deep into his pit of despair and mentally cursing his Servant, a massive, heavy hand slapped him right on the middle of his back.
Smack.
Waver yelped and spun around to glare, but there was nothing there. The morning commuters simply walked past him, ignoring the boy who seemed to be twitching at thin air. The one who had hit him was his Servant.
"You know I can clearly hear you saying all of that, right?" Rider's booming voice echoed directly into Waver's mind.
Because Waver couldn't exactly leave Rider behind while a homicidal teacher was hunting him, the giant was accompanying him in his invisible spirit form.
"And moping in the house like a scared rabbit is not the sign of a warrior, but a coward!" Rider continued, his invisible presence radiating pure, boisterous energy. "Be a little more courageous, like me!"
"So... so what?!" Waver retorted back in an angry, hushed whisper, looking like a crazy person talking to a brick wall. "It is all your fault! I don't want to die because of a stupid Servant!"
Rider sighed, the sound like a gust of wind rustling Waver's hair. "Why are you so scared? I am Iskandar, King of Conquerors! Why do I need to hide my glorious name from weaklings? And why do you, as my Master, have to act so terrified? I simply cannot understand you, kid... you are way more fragile than a little girl."
Waver's face flushed bright red and now angry yet again at Rider.
"Wh-What did you say to me?!" Waver hissed, completely forgetting to keep his voice down as he turned his head sideways to glare at the empty air beside him. "How dare you! I'm your Master, you know! You can't talk to me like…"
"Wait."
But Waver was too busy marching forward, his head turned completely sideways as he argued with his invisible Servant. He wasn't looking straight ahead, nor was he keeping an eye on the people walking past him.
Thud.
Waver bumped squarely into someone.
Or rather, it felt like Waver had just walked face-first into a wall or something. The person he bumped into didn't even flinch. They didn't move a single inch, nor did they take a step back.
On the contrary, the physical feedback was so jarring that Waver was the one who stumbled backward. He lost his footing entirely, his arms flailing wildly in the air as he tripped over his own boots, narrowly avoiding falling flat on his rear end on the concrete pavement.
"Ah, s-sorry..." Waver stammered instinctively. He rubbed his sore shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut as he looked up to apologize to whatever person he had just clumsily rammed into.
But before his brain could process the face of the person he had hit, a highly familiar, cheerful voice spoke up.
"You okay?!"
Waver froze.
"Oh, wait, you're that kid from yesterday night... Rider's Master, right?"
Waver's eyes snapped open. Standing right in front of him, dressed in casual, modern clothes was the white-haired man with black glasses.
Waver's soul practically left his body.
Gojo didn't seem to notice the boy's scared face. Instead, he tilted his head, looking slightly past Waver's trembling shoulder toward the seemingly empty air behind him.
"Hey there, King of Conjurer."
….
A/N: So, How was it? Hoped you liked it and if you do don't forget to send some stones too. See ya in the next chapter.
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