The Holy Grail War. A battle royale-to-the-death between seven Magi and their Servant familiars over the eponymous artifact said to have the power to grant any wish. Many have asked whether or not this Holy Grail was the authentic relic that once touched the lips and blood of Christ. Their skepticism is warranted, for the Holy Church has not made any sort of claim to support the idea. Perhaps they have investigated and deemed it an unworthy falsehood, perhaps they are merely biding their time. That said, those who know better are not fooled by its title, for the so-called "Holy Grail" is nothing more than a vessel that holds the true prize of the war: its contents.
It was three families that conceived of this bloody battle: the Sebunantes, Sveltenrosse, and Rapalights. The Sebunantes are the Second Owners of the highlands around Mount Ararat, the very powerful and old family of magi providing the region as the arena for the war. The Sveltenrosse, with their exceptional libraries of knowledge, once and now again provides the vessel and built the ritual. The Rapalight, necromancers of great achievement, designed the means to control the Heroic Spirits summoned for the war: Command Spells.
A Servant is a Heroic Spirit summoned for the effort of fighting in this proxy war, but their purpose in the truest meaning of the ritual is to die to fill the vaunted cup. Once filled with the magical energy harvested from the Servants, the winner of the Holy Grail War may claim it and have any wish they desire granted. Such a concentration of mana could allow the bestowing of functionally limitless power, cast a grand spell to heal that which is impossible to mend with modern thaumaturgy, or even open a gate to the Swirl of the Root. There are as many reasons as there are people to fight in the Holy Grail War, for as long as humans have a wish they desire granted, the Holy Grail will have power. Although… what caused those three families to fight when they created the ritual together? The answer is simple: only one person can have their wish granted. Human greed is a powerful motivator, and despite their alliance, their goals were not quite the same. Much like another Holy Grail in another world of the Kaleidoscope, the aim was, on the surface, to reach the 3rd Magic: Heaven's Feel. In this time and place, that wish was only held by one of the three families.
1st of July, 2005. 11:00 PM. Artashat, Armenia.
Were we wrong to betray them? I think about more than I should. We might have had a good reason, but it still gnaws at the back of my mind. Honestly, it's really annoying. I can't help but think about it, but I'm not even participating in this 2nd Holy Grail War. Jeez, if my brother could hear my thoughts, he'd chastise me for sure.
I feel the wind of magical energy roil around me centered around him. My brother stands in front of a magic circle, his right arm outstretched over a piece of brass-colored armor plating. He wouldn't tell me what Heroic Spirit he was intending to summon, and no one else wanted to tell me, either. I'm not surprised, even I know it's basic strategy to keep your Servant's identity a closely guarded secret. Even so, you'd think that informing the backup of important details about their task would be a good idea. Although, I understand why they didn't do that, either. Vang Vilha Sebunantes has far more potential as a Magus, nevermind a Master, than I do.
25th of June, 2005. 12:55 AM. Dzithankov, Armenia.
" -Let silver and steel be the essence…"
My body burns as my magic circuits flare to life, the sound of my life being converted into energy flooding my ears. The words come naturally to me, like I had practiced them thousands of times. It's a strange sensation. Every fiber of my being tells me this is the very first time that I've ever spoken these words. But I know for sure: this is just once more in a long lifetime of practice. My current body wasn't ready sixty years ago. In fact, I didn't think I would ever need to use it after the ritual. Really, it was actually something of a waste to maintain and develop once the alliance was formed. Now I'm glad I kept it around, because there's no better vessel in this century to anchor myself to. This blood, these muscles, this flow of mana, and these sensations, all of them are perfect. I dare claim I have surpassed even the best Homunculi with this. My Servant will definitely not have want for energy.
The first Heaven's Feel ritual almost succeeded. Almost. I believed that the binding of an alliance in fellowship would have resulted in the expulsion of evil from the world. I suppose it's ironically fitting that it was human evils that defeated us. My allies, in their greed, broke the alliance in pursuit of their own gains. I don't care what they wanted then, and I don't care now. I will get revenge, and I will complete the ritual. For my ancestors, on the name Sveltenrosse, I will attain the Third Magic.
1st of July, 2005. 11:15 PM. Artashat, Armenia.
A pit forms in my stomach as I watch the magic circle glow brighter and brighter as magical energy accumulates in its formulae. I knew that it would take a heavy sum of power to reach out to the Throne of Heroes, but nothing quite compares to witnessing the ritual first-hand. I'd have been stupefied into a statue if I didn't feel a shiver shoot up my spine from the unease.
I was sent here to be some sort of assistance for my brother in the coming battles. I suppose I should feel honored that I get the chance to "prove myself competent", but I'm not that foolish. My so-called "parents" thought I was expendable. So what if they do? I'll let them think that, and make them grovel when I prove them wrong. It honestly wouldn't be hard to do. All I would need is to go down there and kill my brother, and take the Servant contract for myself, and win the Holy Grail War. Surely I should be able to manage… or so I keep telling myself. The truth is that I just can't do that. I haven't been able to shake off my conscience like the others, like my brother. I may be able to conceive of betrayal, but I just don't have it in me to kill my family. That's fine, I don't need to. No one said proving yourself requires you to kill your competition. I'll find another way to show them what I'm capable of.
I feel another shiver shoot up my spine. This time, it doesn't feel like lingering uneasiness from the summoning ritual happening 20 meters away. Slowly, I manage to swivel my head to look out the window to my right. I didn't want to look away, but as I turn my gaze I feel something foul compel me to continue. Looking out into the horizon, I can see only the starry night sky and the lights of Yerevan. Was I imagining it?
CRASH.
25th of June, 2005. 1:10 AM. Dzithankov, Armenia.
"Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill."
The catalyst I prepared, too, is flawless. Without a doubt, this fossilized feather will call the strongest Servant in this war. I almost chuckle and interrupt the ritual. Magi who believe the Saber Class is the strongest are short-sighted and foolish. Maybe their parameters are impressive, but that's no reason to discard the merits of the other Classes. If a Master relies only on their Servant's parameters, then they're second-rate at best, and third-rate hacks at worst. The class that my Servant manifests is irrelevant to me. As long as the catalyst does its job and summons That Man, my victory is assured; which it should be since it is the fletching of one of His arrows.
My Magic Crest, the sum whole of the Sveltenrosse family craft, incinerates my nerves as it roars to life. It detected my exertion and activated on its own to support me. I bear with it gracefully. It's only natural that a Servant of His caliber would require such from me. Besides, it isn't the first time I felt like I was going to lose my limbs. Though, that doesn't matter either. I literally could lose a few limbs and still would be able to finish the ritual and fight in the Holy Grail War. A pain, sure. Bothersome even. But that was why I always have a storage of replacements just in case.
" -Let it be declared now;
Your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth."
I almost choke the words out, the pain intensifies. Is this Hero of particular value? Of course he is, I planned for it. Such an old warrior would surely be the ultimate in any Holy Grail War. That's why I selected him, because I don't have the patience to wait another sixty years in the case of my failure. So I decided to leave nothing to chance, and summon an undeniably superior Servant. I let a corner of my mind wander to muse on the thought that it was fitting that I suffer to bring him here. With such a laudable lineage, it was only natural.
1st of July, 2005. 11:18 PM. Artashat, Armenia.
The ground shakes, my knees almost give way with how violently the building trembles. What was that? It was like we got hit by a missile. It takes me a moment to collect my thoughts, and that's when I remember that not all people in the world honor the courtesy of allowing your enemy to prepare their forces before going to war. To put it in less words: not everyone has honor.
CRASH. SMASH. BOOM.
I hear the evidence of destruction, and my legs start moving before I even realize it. The sounds are coming from the direction of the summoning circle. My view is completely obscured, dust and debris obfuscating any details regarding the center of the room. I can only stand frozen in place, holding onto the railing from my elevated position. I resist the urge to jump down and run to his side. He'd chew me out for ruining his concentration if this was part of the ritual. But if it's not…
I prepare to jump over the edge of the floor before I'm stopped by a smell that sinks my stomach: the tangy iron scent of blood. I better get down there, if for nothing else than to see if he needed medical assistance. I try again to jump over the edge, but my instincts scream at me to play as a statue. There was something else, something much more ominous in that circle, and I didn't have to wait long to figure out what it was. It was hard to mistake the mystic weight that a Servant had. A cautious hope budded in my chest when I focused and only felt the presence of one Servant. Or, well, I think it was only one. This oppressive aura must surely belong to a Servant. If this was the presence of two Heroic Spirits, then they were much less impressive than I initially though. I see a silhouette in the dust cloud as it begins to settle. If all went well, in just a moment I would see my brother and his Servant standing there. However, the smell of blood sucks on that bud, pulling it towards a pit in my gut. What I see, however, sends it down faster than the pull of gravity.
25th of June, 2005. 1:11 AM. Dzithankov, Armenia.
" -An oath shall be sworn here.
I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven;
I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell."
What was that?
I felt something snap. Or, no, was it more like a grating sound? No, I'm sure that was a tearing. It sounded like fabric, but wet. If it was my body then that's ok, I can keep going, but what if it was the summoning circle? No, it couldn't have been the circle. I know the circle is perfect, everything about it, down to the quality of soil meters below me. Was I imagining it, or did I make a mistake in my concentration? No, no, don't dwell on it. I will surely fail if I allow this to distract me. I will continue with grace and elegance, and I will summon that legendary Archer.
1st of July, 2005. 1:19 AM. Artashat, Armenia.
I can tell the Servant is a man by the rippling musculature and masculine face. He wore visually impressive golden armor that glistened as if it belonged to someone of great renown, black placed in ways that only further added to that impression. There is a splotch of red covering his right side. His hair is a dark blue bordering on purple, and even from this distance I could see he was wearing expensive gold earrings. I don't know a lot about Roman armor, but I recognized his sandals - caligae - from what books I did read on the Roman Empire. But these things weren't what stood out to me. His eyes, those black sclera surrounding glowing red irises. It was a gaze that pierced the darkness with the sheer weight of madness behind them. The Servant raises a bloody round object above their head. I didn't need to watch him as he crushed my brother's head and partook of his blood and flesh to know that this was a sadistic Berserker. Second to those maddened eyes was the crimson-red cape hanging down from his shoulders. I'm sure it's made of fabric, but I can't help but believe that the color is from the blood of his enemies in life. That's just what the fear in my heart told me.
"Excellent! Excelleeeent! Offer it all. Your body. Your Soul. To meee!"
Those are the first words I hear him say. Was this the Servant that my brother intended to Summon? No, that can't be right. The armor he used as a catalyst had a bronze color, not gold. Though, could gold become more bronze-like in appearance with age? No, this wasn't his Servant. Vang wasn't weak enough to allow his Servant to so easily kill him. I've never even gotten close to attaining an advantage in our sparring duels, surely he would have been able to use a Command Seal to stop his Servant in their tracks. I feel a draft on my skin and turn my head to see its origin. That confirms it. Servants don't just make a hole in the wall when they're summoned. Damn it, this is why I was sent here. I was supposed to see something like this coming, advise, and act! I clench my fingers around the railing as fear grips me, but I force it down. This is an enemy Servant, which means I'm-
I take a step back, but my fingers don't let go of the railing, anchoring me in place and jolting my attempt at a retreat. I try to will them to peel away, but they won't budge. Damn it, why won't they loosen? I hear the wet noise of ripping flesh and the snapping of bones breaking as the smell of blood continues to flood my nose while I try to separate myself from my self-made captor, but all I do is make noise. Big mistake.
The Servant turns his head to face me, and at once those piercing eyes of madness register my existence and seem to burn like lanterns with elation.
"You! Offer yourself. To me! Ahh!"
Oh, I'm dead.
CRASH.
I somehow jumped to the side just in time, my hands finally wrenched free from the railing. Nothing remains of where I once stood. My nose is filled with dust and blood, and I scramble my shaking legs up underneath me. I can't stay still. If I stop moving, I'm dead.
I run along the railing, foolishly believing that any distance I make now will help me. I don't need just distance, I need obstacles. Something that will actually delay a Servant for more than a few microseconds. A tra-. A pil-. A vendi-. Each time I think of something, every time I topple some object, it's immediately proven irrelevant. I don't need to look to know he's right behind me. I feel the force of wind of his every swing, and the debris of every strike that hits the ground. I'm desperately dodging, but I don't know how long I can-.
I feel something grab my right arm. It takes my mind a moment later to realize that my forearm has just been crushed in an inhuman grip. My lungs hurt. I realize my diaphragm is crushing them. I'm screaming, but the only thing I can hear is the inhuman laughter echoing in this chamber. My attacker takes rapt joy in my suffering. The last thing I think before I'm being swung in the air is that I can't feel my right hand anymore. I hear the sound of flesh ripping and the pop of a joint leaving its socket as I'm sent flying across the room. I feel my body crash onto the floor, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop in the middle of the room.
I blink to try and regain my bearings, but before I can my stomach empties itself. Vomit surges out of my mouth before I even realize I'm in the middle of the eviscerated remains of my brother. I cough as the last of the bile exits my throat, and thank my luck that I was laying on my side. At least I'll live a few seconds longer and not choke on my own vomit. Instead, I'll be crushed and devoured by an insane warrior from a bygone era. All things considered, it wasn't a totally bad way to go.
I blink hard a few more times to get my mind to focus. I realize I'm laying in the summoning circle. That lost bud of hope climbed out of that pit in my gut. I'm not going to die here, I refuse. The heir to the Sebunantes family has just died, which means that I am the sole living heir as of this moment. I can't afford to die for the sake of the family Magecraft.
I try to put my right arm on the bloody floor to get myself up, but my right arm doesn't appear. Maybe it's been pulled full from its socket and my muscles are torn? I turn my head to look, and notice that instead of an arm, there is just an empty space. Blood is spurting from where my arm should be. My shoulder.
My shoulder. My shoulder. My shoulder. My shoulder. My shoulder.
My shoulder and all are missing entirely. I can't breathe. I can't think. What was I just doing? I'm under attack, but who is it? What was it I just decided? I look back to the space in front of me and learn the fate of my wayward limb.
The Berserker held it in his death-like grip, blood flowing freely from my shoulder. I can see my bone protruding from the end, I can see my broken bones bent and fractured, poking at the surface of the skin. I can't deny it anymore: my arm has been claimed as a casualty of this War. My vision blurs as the bloodloss starts to take its toll. I can't believe that I'm going to die a mongrel's death; lying in my vomit and both my and my brother's blood and viscera. If only the Summoning ritual succeeded…
It's only now that I realize the cool touch of metal on my left hand. I force a breath into my lungs and bring my eyes to focus. My hand is touching the bronze armor piece. That's weird, this should be in the summoning circle, not in this pile of flesh and sickness. I realize what that means, and I feel life enter my bones again as I suck down a choking breath. Yes, this is my only chance. If I'm lying where I think I am, then-.
I see it in my mind: a piece of flint striking steel, and my magic circuits flare to life.
I see the Servant charging towards me, a mad glee driving him forward. I have no time to go through the whole motion, I'll have to have faith in my brother's summoning progress. I flood all of my mana that I can through the catalyst and into the summoning circle. Though I have no strength left, my voice rings out as if I commanded coolly.
Two voices, separated by time and miles, spoke the same words.
" -From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,
come forth from the ring of restraint, guardian of the scales!"
One on the brink of death, heir to a heritage steeped in the Earth itself, an accident of the circumstances of war. The other merely preparing for the coming battles, heiress to an ancient ambition. Both are pillars of this tale, yet there is one more yet to be introduced. An eruption of flames would herald both of their arrivals. Two heroes remarkably similar, but a world of difference apart.
25th of June, 2005. 1:25 AM.
A man in gold armor with a skin-tight black layer underneath stood proudly at the center of the circle. His skin was a pale white, his hair matching it with style. In his right hand was a lance tipped with an ornament of the sun. Attached to the back of his armor was a vibrant red cape of sorts, a ribbon of the same material hung from the end of the spear opposite to the tip. His eyelids lifted to reveal heterochromatic eyes: one red, the other blue. However, none of these things are what stood out to me the most.
No, the far more important matter was that I'm losing mana at an astonishing rate. If you could quantify my amount of magical energy with some sort of arbitrary unit, I can output on average about 1,200 units if I push myself. That is to say, my maximum output. My Servant, just by standing there, is taking up nearly 800 units. In other words, from this moment onwards, he will eventually drain me dry by merely existing. This is not good. I will be unable to store magical energy for use later if I can't find a way to make his consumption more efficient somehow. It must be his armor and that lance. That's okay, he should be able to dismiss them, and I can store up more magical energy when he's not materialized. This will work. Though, it's strange, I don't recall Arjuna being depicted quite like-
"I am Karna; Lancer Class Servant. Am I to presume that you are my Master?
Oh.
...
Is it possible that if I ignore the burning feeling of my Command Seals forming on my hand, they will simply go away and give me the chance to try again?
1st of July, 2005. 11:25 PM.
A man in bronze armor emerged from the pillar of fire. The first thing I notice about him is his brilliantly blonde hair and crimson cape. Unlike the one that belonged to my attacker, it more gently lacked a reminiscence to blood, an observation that put a calm in my heart. Wait. What am I doing again? Delirium is setting in. I can't move anything, I can't hear anything, but I can see his arms ready to receive the attacking Servant, and in a flash of movement used the belligerent's momentum against him. In a moment the Berserker was sent flying back where he charged from, and from the sound of it, crashed through several walls. The man turns to look down at me, and the image of his face burned into my memory. It's gentle, and very much concerned. Ah, that's good, I summoned a Servant that's worried about such things. It doesn't matter to me whether or not he's the Servant that my brother wished to summon, I am just glad that I might survive if it's someone like him.
My eyelids are... so heavy...
I see a sword sheathed on his hip, a fine crimson cloth like the one used for his cape is wrapped around its crossguard. It looks like it's there to keep the sword sheathed in its scabbard. In this moment, that blonde hair seems to glow gently in the moonlight. I know he's talking because his lips are moving, but I can't hear him. My consciousness fades, and I enter the dark void of a deathlike sleep.
XXX of XXXX, 2005. XX:XX XX.
This Holy Grail War is not a normal one. It is familiar, yes, but the Kaleidoscope is an expansive phenomenon. This world has many similarities to the few most interesting, and yet it is so certainly different. The Tohsakas, Einzberns, and Makiri have no place here. Neither do the Emiyas, Fraga, Edelfelts, nor Yggdmillennia. In the place of these all are seven bloodlines unrelated to these famed lineages.
A brother-now-single-child still trying to prove himself to an unfeeling father, the woman who remains the only living mind from the first Holy Grail War bent on achieving a millennia-long dream, a girl clearing her own path to tread an unpaved road, a man with reckless vision reaching greedily for the same goal as an old ally's, a debtor who would do almost anything to wipe his slate clean, a madwoman seeking to commit blasphemy for the sake of knowledge and obsession, and a cast-away orphan on the highway to an all-consuming vengeance.
A reticent Saber wielding Holy Fire, a determined Lancer bright as the Sun, a lonely Archer shattered to the Winds, a brilliant Rider whose domain glitters under eternal Sunlight, an underestimated Assassin among the 19 claimants, an ambitious Caster forged in Steel and Steam, an exceptionally insane Berserker who epitomizes the Class, and me: the Ruler who Adjudicates the War.
I see it in my Revelation: the Alliance of Knights, the Civil War of the Sun, and the Imperious Blasphemy. I do not know how nor when, but I understand my purpose here. I will ensure that these monumental crossing of blades will not claim unnecessary lives.
