Prologue: A More Suitable Master
(Loop 27)
Let silver and steel be the essence.
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let red be the color I pay tribute to.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate."
"Let it be filled. Again. Again. Again. Again.
Let it be filled fivefold for every turn, simply breaking asunder with every filling.
I felt a tugging on my soul. A familiar feeling of my consciousness being swindled out from under me. Thankfully there was no third verse. About a third of the time I'm summoned with the added lines:
Yet you shall serve with your eyes clouded by chaos.
For you would be one caged in madness.
I shall wield your chains.
Then it is not me in control, but the nutcracker and above it my master dancing upon his own strings.
I open my eyes to a pit of foul shadows and decay. The catacombs of the Matou legacy. I relax and clench my hands beneath me. It is good to have hands. I feel the Grail's knowledge pour into me and it's clear I'm once again of the Assassin class. It is the optimal one for me.
There disappointment is unspoken but obvious to me. They expected a grand hero. A knight in shining armor, or a monster who devoured legends. Instead they got a slip of a girl dressed in a Mitakihara Middle School uniform. The geas of the grail forces the next words from me as I pointedly ignore the wrinkled crone behind my master.
"Servant Assassin has been summoned to participate in the Holy Grail War. I ask of you: Are you my master?"
My master turns to Zouken, and I know what he's thinking: can I send her back and try again. It is not insulting. I know what I look like, and my master's ethics makes him uncomfortable sending a girl into a war.
"You should not judge a servant by their appearance. Least of all, an Assassin." Responds Zouken. Wise advice. "What do her stats say?"
"I can't read them. They're in some strange Runic script."
"Encrypted. Useful, provided it's not just a failed summoning glitch from a useless master." He sneers. "Acknowledge her and take her away. Since you've spurned summoning a Berserker you're not likely to win, so at least don't bring your servant battles down upon this place. After all, you wouldn't want Sakura to become collateral damage." The sound of his cane makes an pattern of fading claps as he retreats. The shadow of his threat remains behind.
Kariya's fist clenches, but he tries to conceal it as he turns to me. He offers me his hand. I rise and shake it. The weakness in it is familiar and brings to mind the smell of hospital beds. With one last glance and a careful scan of the stone floor for crawling vermin, I follow him out. There is little time and every second counts, but I do not want to appear rushed.
Before we leave, Kariya takes us upstairs to say goodbye to Sakura. She reminds me a bit of myself when I was hospitalized and hadn't seen my family in ages.
The horrors she's seen however eclipse my own and at a younger age too. I wonder if that will make her stronger one day when she is my age. Kyubey would certainly have loved to meet her.
Soon enough the time for farewells is over. With a shy wave, she saw us off before ducking back inside.
Once we are two blocks from the house I propose a change of plans to Kariya. "Master, one of my abilities allows me to simulate and predict the behavior of my enemies. I believe that there is another master who has not yet summoned their servant. If we act fast, we may be able to defeat them before they can summon their servant."
"The master will be in hiding and probably be ready to make an emergency summoning without a catalyst if we start breaking through their defenses."
"Not this master. I plan to track down and kill the wild card master, who is not a magus and is unaware of the Holy Grail War. The only downside to this is that I will need to leave your side tonight, and the command seals will just appear on a different wild card master. That said, the new master will be far more reasonable and easier to form an alliance with."
His hesitation is because he doubts my ability. If I am wrong we'll have killed a man for nothing. I could point out secrets of his, Zouken and Sakura's past that would eliminate all doubts in his mind, but there's an easier way to bring him on board. I point out that the target, Ryuunosuke, is a serial killer and will have killed three families already. I also let slip that if we don't deal with him now he'll form a three way alliance with Tokiomi and his apprentice, Kirei.
My white lie works. I lead Kariya into the low income housing district and we camp out across the street from Ryuunosuke's apartment. While I'd like to track him down immediately, he spends far too much time unpredictably wandering around most loops. Five boring hours later he arrives home and I sneak in alone. I have no guns or explosives stockpiled yet. It doesn't matter. With the stealth of assassin I make my way inside and find a kitchen knife. A click of my shield and the world becomes gray. Caster's would-be master will never notice the knife as it slides across his throat or the shadow in the room that watches him bleed out.
I pick up the demon summoning handbook that Ryuunosuke would have used as his basis for a summoning ritual, and show it to Kariya. After a glance he quickly instructs me to dispose of it. I take it as he rubs a spot of swollen flesh vigorously as if it and his lineage could be wiped away.
In the morning, while he is asleep, I take it over to a den of Yakuza. Through trial and error I have discovered that the Fujimura group is partially aware of the Moonlit world. In particular they are well aware about the true nature of the Holy Grail Wars through a combination of their police and magus connections. I sneak in and present the book to their head-Raiga Fujimura. I answer a few of his questions, and just enough information about the other masters to imply useful a partnership could be. After pointing out the ritual Ryuunosuke was going to do I leave. In a few days one of their enemies will be bled out and used to power a flawed summoning ritual that will, nevertheless, make Raiga Fujimura the 7th and final master.
My 27th grail war has begun. Madoka...
Prologue 2: Mystery and Legend
(Loop XXX)
Upon the throne of heroes there is no concept of time. Two concepts that do have meaning are legend and mystery. The oldest heroes generally have the greatest mystery, but some like me are elevated without their deeds ever being noted by a single mortal soul. Those are the ones, if their deeds are great enough, who possess the greatest potential mystery. I believe my own is mitigated by a single factor-my own mental state is not...alien enough.
The other concept is legend, or as some would call it 'legacy.' The more your deeds are embedded within the collective consciousness of mankind the more potent and deep the power of ones noble phantasms become. Often younger heroes are either mysterious, legendary or neither. Ancient heroes may sometimes possess both attributes, but often if they are remembered and chosen by masters, who can even find catalysts then their mystery is not of the purest quality.
The grail wars are a strange attempt to pit alien concepts against each other as if they were still human. I can see now the fingerprints of humanity in their design. In their insistence that there are many attributes from strength to endurance to agility to ones Noble Phantasms. This is wrong. Or perhaps this is just a crude translation made by the class containers.
Once I even had a very engaging conversation with Caster on this topic. She compared mystery to the purity and focusing of power. On the other hand, legend affects the volume and quantity of ones might. Thus, the optimal Caster is one with an impenetrable Mystery, and the optimal Saber is one with a grand and limitless legend.
Every once in a great while I see it happen. The lie unravels and the class container's strength defies it's own limits. It is their legend or mystery fluctuating as they either exceed their own legend or walk further away from the common sense of man.
After that me and Caster tried to kill each other. As usual I failed, but I learned something. That's all that matters-what you can learn and take with you. There's always another loop. It has become my Ouroboros in life and in death. A cross and an ark. It's funny that the most unhappy time of my life was in that moment when I was broken free of it and returned to a pleasant normal life. A life I can never accept. I am a rat on a hamster wheel who can get off at any time.
Once I even played it out to the end. I saw what would come if I stubbornly swam through an ocean of curses to claim my cheap, dirty victory. It was...shameful. Atop a fiery sea of destruction I met her once more and knew nothing but shame. I felt naked. There were no fig leaves to cover me in self-deceit. The excuses tripped up on their way off my tongue and came out as sobs. I wished her goodbye and left her behind.
A miracle powered by the mystery and legend of 7 great heroes, half a century of prana harvested from a meeting of Japan's central leylines, and the despair of thousands who have perished amidst a tragedy that spans centuries. What purpose would I have, after all, with a cheap wish that could be easily obtained? The deeper a mahou shoujo's tragedy the grander the wish she can make, and the more terrible the curse she carries and gives birth to. This curse is terrible and should not be easily overcome. It ought to be impossible. I pray for it to be harder. For it to dwarf Walpurgisnacht and make Gretchen screech in envy.
I seek the greatest of wishes. I seek an impossible dream. I have all the time in the world. Defeat is not failure. Despair, hopelessness and apathy are the harbingers of my failure. I will not give them a foothold.
There is one last thing to do. There are two people who remember the truth: who remember who I once was. Where I came from. Who I was. Everything I fought and did before the wraithes and the lies and her sacrifice.
Two is one more than is necessary.
If I do this then will I ever retrieve my name again.
Or will I be a shadow of myself. A whisper in the darkness that cannot hear what it is whispering.
I'm afraid.
This is almost like death.
Goodbye.
Madoka, I'm holding you to your promise. I also promise no matter what, even if this world comes to a fiery end, I will never forget you, my friend.