Power, in a world of Magi, will always be in a state of flux. Too much power in the hands of too few have created a society in which the great grow greater and the lesser have to trail behind.
Early in mage history, families were divided into small covens scattered across the globe with absolutely no rhyme or reason to their practices. Each group was free to practice whatever methods and abilities they chose, and thusly came the darkest aspects of magic.
Blatant alchemists, rampaging necromancers, cults of blood magi, mortal society found them easily and slaughtered everyone they could get their filthy hands on. The Witch Hunts, they called them, made sport of finding any magician they could catch.
They butchered men, destroyed the women, slaughtered children, anyone too weak to fight them off or too kind to battle back were hunted down like wild boars.
And when the world was at its worst and it seemed like the fate of magic was doomed, then came the Mage's Association.
At that time, they called themselves The Guild, a group of very power magi that together were capable of destroying the Inquistion. They banded the scattered covens together into one mighty army and turned the war in their favor.
With The Witch Hunts put down, The Mage's Association led their people back into the shadows of the world and created an entire world for themselves hidden beneath that of mortals. Placing themselves in a postion of power, The Guild gave the world of mages new meaning, they put together the rules of the world, did all it took to keep themselves shrouded from mortals, and they kept that peace for centuries, at the cost of more lives than people are willing to count.
Unfortunately, people, especially magi, are not the type to live complacent with what they're given. "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile," the phrase never had as much meaning as it did to magicians.
The longer a mage's line continues, the more powerful they grow. A Mage's Crest passes down to the first child born into a line, and with each generation more knowledge and magic circuits are passed down.
While the Guild may have been powerful in the beginning, the passage of time never affected their leaders, so while they remained perpetually great, with each passing generation families grew stronger and brighter. Several of these families almost reached a point of rivaling the Guildmaster and his underlings.
And they could never allow that to happen. If the Mage's Association was to be displaced, all the progress they made over the years would be lost as well. Magi would be slaughtered in the streets, the burnings would begin again, and the world itself would be torn asunder.
The Association worked tirelessly to find some sort of plan to limit the power of magi or mitigate the growth of Mage Crests.
It was the Director himself who came up with the plan. He implanted a singular idea into the minds of three families that were nearing his potential as a caster, one goal that required power far outside of the realm of possiblilty.
He called it the Holy Grail.
Rumor has it that he based it off the original Christian artifact, but the truth to the matter is far more confusing. Story has it that the Holy Grail was a copy of an ancient relic capable of granting the deepest and darkest of the hearts desires. It is the prototype of an "omnipotent container"; being the 726th of its kind, it is a gate to the Root. While it is not a true omnipotent container, the replica acts as a sort of wish machine that can bring forth one's own will.
At the time, the families of Einzbern was one of the leading powerhouses in magic, they posessed a strange ability for wish-granting magic, completely eliminated the need for prerequisities in magic. With the use of prana alone they could accomplish any task that would require a master magus to perform.
They had hoped to bring the Holy Grail to our world in order to restore the third magic to the world, that of Heaven's Feel. Magic powerful enough to seperate the soul from the body without draining it into Akasha. This state of being would make a magus invicible, seperate from the deterrioration of body and weakening of soul; the user would be capable of infinite magical potentional within this state of nonbeing. The Einzbern had originally been the harnessers of this potent magic, but it had been lost to the sands of time thousands of years before anyone made attempts to call the Holy Grail.
This coven was the first to fall victim to the Director's plan, he put an entire schematic into the patriach's mind, summoning rituals, binding containers, everything down to the prana he'd need.
The only problem with the whole plan?
The Director intentionally left out the need for spiritual conduits to summon an artifact powered by ancient energy, or the fact that to bind it they would need a ridiculous amount of prana to even attempt to call it to this plain of existence.
And so the Einzbern family struggled with the machinations of combining alchemy and wish-making, but little to no real progress was made until the late 1700s, early 1800s, when the great mage family turned to help from other powerful groups.
They joined with the Tohsaka family, a younger coven who were skilled in the use of jewel magecraft. The Japanese based family had a very powerful connection to the holy lands of Fuyuki, and it was through them they were capable of pulling the Holy Grail through dimensional gates. The stronger the link between the target and destination the more powerful the binding ritual.
The only problem after this powerful coupling was that they lacked the skill to bind a spiritual object to the corporeal world.
And thusly the final ally in this dark ritual, the Makiri family.
They are now referred to as the Matou family, but they were originally known as the Makiri, a Russian family who were binding savants. They created a concept of absorbing energies and binding magics. From the outside, they seemed like a family of brilliant magicians, but beneath the surface they practice the art of "carving" magic into the body with their creation of the "Crest Worms."
They spent an entire decade building up the energy to form the Holy Grail, and when it was finally time to begin the final ritual, they lured other magi with a call of: "We've succeeded in manifesting the Grail. If you'd like to witness this miracle, join us and become Masters."
After a fourth outsider was drawn into the web, the bindings began and in a matter of days, the first Holy Grail War began.
The Matou family created an entire system of binding ancient powerful entities to the "Masters" involved and with each one that was slain, the Grail grew progressively tangible. Those involved called it nothing more than a small quarrel and ended before the Heaven's Feel could be reached.
The second of these "Holy Grail Wars" was actually the first time the name was ever brought into use. During this period the shortcomings in the rules were brought to light and an officiator was brought in to prevent the "war" from becoming a murder spree. An official from the Church acted as an overseer of the competition.
Everything was going according to the Director's plan until the Third Holy Grail War. Mages have always been impossible to predict. Especially when they're desperate.
The third war took place on the eve of the second world war. The Edelfelt family was participating as well and due to their Sorcery Trait, the Einzbern family doubted their chance of winning and having the third magic stolen from their grasp again. The Edelfelt have an ability known as Ore Scales, it allows for multiple heirs within the same generation, each with their own Mage Crest; the newcomers were capable of summoning twin sides of the same servant, allowing for two Sabers with equal ability.
So in retaliation, the wish-granting family attempted to summon the Zoroastrian god, Angra Mainyu, the god of destruction. They obtained an Avenger class servant in place of a regular Berserker, but the Avenger was weak without any abilities.
Though he didn't last long into the conflict Angra Mainyu had a very serious lasting effect on the Holy Grail War. The Grail was destroyed before a suitable victor could be decided, but because of his dark nature, Avenger corrupted the Holy Grail when it was devoured, and with this darkness, the summoning rituals of the war changed as well.
Instead of just "Heroic Spirits" that could be summoned, darker creatures were also capable of appearing in the modern world.
The Fourth Holy Grail War was when the shift truly began. With a change in the summoning pool, an evil figure was summoned by the name of Gilles de Rais, and the destruction of the Lesser Grail meant that there was need for a vessel for the Grail. They called her Irisviel Von Einzbern.
In place of an Einzbern master as there had been in all previous wars, a magus by the name of Kiritsugu Emiya acted as their stand in. He cheated the Holy Grail by attacking other masters in subterfuge and hiding behind others, and in the end he destroyed the Grail and in doing so, spat in the faces of his patrons. Emiya's actions created a large conflagration that killed five hundred people and destroyed one hundred and thirty four buildings.
Without any true ending to the fourth war, a subsequent fifth war was started ten years after the destruction in Fuyuki, with a sudden new pool of masters.
This Fifth Holy Grail War would turn out to be the end of the series, as with victory over his fellow master, Shirou Emiya, adopted son of Kiritsugu Emiya, destroyed the Holy Grail instead of activating it.
Former masters, Rin Tohsaka and Lord El-Melloi II fought against the Mage's Association's attempts to reestablish the Holy Grail Wars, and after a great deal of turmoil on par with the Holy Grail War, but in the end the Greater Grail was dismantled and the Holy Grail Wars of Fuyuki were ended.
The peace could never last.
Without the balance of eliminating magi every few decades, the power of mages grew far too strong and several small groups of families began warring, politically, within the Association. Instead of handfuls of families overcoming the Directors magical potentional, dozens were on the brim of conquering that glass ceiling.
And without the ability to force order, the Director and his underlings could no longer keep power, and other casters began to try their hands at control.
Edelfelt, Tohsaka, Einzbern, Emiya, Mello-oi, Fraga, and Sophia-Ri openly challenged one another for the position of leader in the world they wished to develop without the Mage's Association.
There was a great schism in the association, nine diffect sects supporting each of the mages wanting authority, and a final group that aimed to flee the magic world once and for all.
They were called "Faultists" for their belief that the world that had nurtured and trained them was broken. Those lost magi disappeared into the mortal world without another word and the Association fell even further apart.
In one last ploy, the Director gathered up the shards of the Greater Grail and collected all the prana left from the previous connection to the Route and what was at hand, he crafted a new tool to distract his foes.
He called it the Infinite Grail War.
The device he created was so close to the orginal artifact that it even held the power of a true omnipotent container, through this creation a magus of only a few generations could crush any ancient family.
And those long noble lines of magi?
This entity could make them powerful enough to rob the world of its Mage Crests. With this small weapon the impossible would literally be as easy as snapping your fingers.
And that was exactly what they told the competing families.
Each of the seven family rulers would select seven masters to serve as their fighters, and to each of these masters there would be a servant. A true battle of magic and servants, fourty nine servants and fourty nine masters would battle for the right to this Infinity Grail.
At the end, once there is only one team remaining, those fighters would each be granted a singular miracle to use in any way they so wish; the sponsor would recieve the omnipotent cup, and with it enough power to shatter reality if they so wished.
And as usual, the Director kept his secrets for the others, and no one would ever know.
The short, silver-haired girl reclined in her overly plush sitting room chair, crossing her ankle's and busying her fingers scrolling along a large white tablet. The light tapping echoed through the mostly empty room, reverberating around the high pale ceilings and bouncing off the large colored glass panes decorating the wall in front of her.
The girl sighed dramatically and flipped hair out of her face with a quick flick of her head, "This is absolutely hopeless!" another dramatic sigh escaped her lips and tossed the device onto the chair abreast of hers.
"Something the matter, mistress?" One of the crimson-eyed maids stepped forward with a cup of tea in hand; she placed the small porcelain cup and saucer on the square table seperating the twin chairs and moved out of the way of her shorter master's way.
"The list of champions, Sella." she pointed at the fragile machine, hard lines contorted her face in anger, "Have you looked at it?"
The woman shook her head, hands clutching at the hem of her dress nervously, "No ma'am, the Overseer said it was for your eyes alone..."
"Of course she did, the woman's possessed!" she flung her hands up and a bolt of electricity cracked above her, "Acting like it's some sort of criminal offense to let anyone other than the Association know what's going on."
"My lady, it may be best to come back to the list once you've calmed down and had a think about what would be best..." even with her hands back at her sides, the girl was firing off random bolts of energy ever few seconds.
"No!" her body whipped instinctively to face her servant and the quick movement fired off the taut magic around her; massive spears of light rocketed from the girl's clenched fists, shattering every window along the wall behind her and scarring the marble floor all the way to the maid's feet.
"Oh..." she scatched the back of her head awkwardly, "I keep forgetting what I can do now...you'd think the decades would've helped me learn." red eyes closed in concentration and when they finally opened again they were pure gold.
"Maybe you should let me fix it, Lady Einzbern..." the white-clad woman raised her hands to prepare a spell, but her master waved her off. "No, I know what i'm doing."
She slowly raised her pale hands as if she were lifting some sort of invisible orb, and the moment they were at full length a brilliant blue sphere of magic materialized above her head.
"Is it safe to use time magic like this, I mean-" Sella raised a timid hand, but cut off when the powerful young magus grinned at her.
"Don't worry, this is nothing." the ball rippled momentarily and the world froze around the girl, everything took on a dark blue hue, the curtains, floor, even the red-eyed maid was now different shades of cyan and torquiose.
The glowing clear orb became a blur of motion, and, like watching a movie in reverse, the scar in the floor sealed itself and the shattered glass knit itself back together.
Before she dismissed her distortion orb, the girl strode over to the chair where she discarded her tablet. Gingerly she recollected the small device and sat down again with the cup of tea in one hand and list in her other.
"-you have a habit of losing control of..." the maid frowned turned towards the now sitting young woman, "you could give me some warning."
"I figured a giant glowing thing in the air would be enough of a hint..." the girl sipped her drink, eyes never leaving the glass screen in front of her, "So, as I was trying to say earlier, the options for champions are absolutely abysmal."
The servant sighed and adjusted her dress before adressing her employer again, "How so, my lady?"
"I recognize a good few of these names from families that left during the schism, and others...do you remember the Gale girl I was telling you about?"
"The one who attacked lady Edelfelt after losing a game of cards?" even the servants who never left the manor were familiar with Claire Gale, the psychopathic magus who nearly murdered one of the families attempting to take control of the magic world.
"She's on here, same as Nightlocke and Blake..." the distaste in the girl's face was all the matron needed to figure out who she meant.
"Nightlocke...he was the necromancer, right?" she thought for a minute, face screwed in confusion, "Or did he steal a Mage Crest?"
"Both," the young master murmured, "and Blake set fire to an entire city, apparently attempting to summon a glow-orb."
"Are they all so dangerous as those?" Sella moved unconsciously to look over her master's shoulder, "Can you trust any of those to champion the Einzbern family?"
"That's the maddening part, some of these I'm certain have never handled magic in their life, and others are probably entirely willing to slaughter the competition." she ran a small hand through her colorless locks. "Look, Stanford and Hope are on here too. I thought they would have been banished or some other nonsense after what they did..."
"So this war will be fought by children and criminals?" the woman pulled a sour face, "Perfect, just bloody perfect."
The child grinned, "Exactly what I was thinking." she typed in a few quick selections and passed it over to the maid, "I'll have to begin hunting for catalysts, they'll need powerful servants if they're to stand a chance against thieves and murderers."
"Are you sure she's a good choice, that girl is trouble, and if you give her the chance, she'd kill you in your sleep." the woman gave her young charge a concerned look, but the girl waved her off.
"You mean Ms. Gale, don't you?" she didn't need to see a nod to know she was right. "I doubt she'll last long, if the past Holy Grail Wars are anything to go off of."
She grinned, "And even if she does, I'll just kill her myself!" the innocent giggle that followed did anything but put the matron at ease.
"Prepare an extra place at the dinner table, Sella, we'll be having a guest this evening." she finished the cup of tea and placed it back on it's saucer.
"Should I have a room prepared as well, we have free space in the west wing, and a dual room in the east wing if you think the cold wouldn't be too big of an issue."
"No, I doubt he'll stay for dinner, you know how cousin Katashi is, he must get it from his Tohsaka roots, little brother never would've been so rude." She gave a short laugh and shoved herself back to her feet.
"Is he here already?" Sella moved to window tried to crane her neck to see the front door. "He'll arrive in a few minutes, but I want to be there to open the door, it looks like it's about to rain..."
"Leysritt will ready the parlor then, anything else, mistress?" the woman collected the empty cup and glided to the door.
"No, but cousin will want tea when he comes in. He wants to make a deal with me to help him win the Infinite Grail." the girl yawned, and when the maid turned back towards her master, she was gone.
"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill..." the grey haired boy murmured to himself as he dripped blood from his open palm onto the summoning circle. He nodded to the girl standing off to the side and the charred skull was placed on the stump resting opposite of the circle from him.
"I hereby propose. My will shall create thy body, and thy sword shall create my fate." the intoned words echoed through his clearing and the crimson wheel began thrumming with palpable energy.
"Abiding by the summons of the Holy Grail, if thou dost accede to this will and reason, answer me!" the gateway began to spin deliberately slow, and its pulse of power began to shake the earth like some monstrous heartbeat.
Still though, the young man was unperturbed, and launched into the next phrase with practiced ease, "I hereby swear. I will be all that is good in the eternal world. I will be the disposer of evil in the eternal world."
With each line of the evocation, the circle's steady beat of power struck harder and harder, practically hammering the earth with it's unnatural strength. "Thou, clad with the Great Trinity, come forth from the circle of constraint. Guardian of the Heavenly Scale!" The light grew until blindingly bright and it enveloped the magus in its brilliance.
And then it exploded.
The sudden release of power knocked the young magus airborne for several seconds and rocketed him against an oak further back than he dared to count. The youth was almost certain he'd heard something crack, but the throbbing pain in his head was far too distracting.
"I am Caster, your servant. I come in response to your summons..." a soft voice called out into the darkness, "Are you my master?"
And the boy only smiled, it had worked, he had his servant.