Chapter I:

The Calm Before the Storm

Why?

Why are they reaching towards her?

What could she, someone so tiny and weak, do to help them? They, of all people, should know how weak she was. Don't they remember how she cried because of the tiniest of scrapes, how she cried when others took her toys, how she cried every single time they had to leave her under the care of someone else?

Then why, why are their blistered hands crawling closer and closer, as if trying to drag her into the raging inferno as well?

And how come she can't cry now, even as she watches the flesh being burned off their very bones? How come she doesn't even shout for help even as their hellish screams, akin to a whole choir of banshees, are on the verge of making her puncture her own eardrums?

"Stop…"

Her voice, not even loud enough to be called a whisper, just fades into the scorching air. And as their eyes burn into their very sockets they keep on trying, unwavering, unswayable, unwilling to give up even as the fires of hell devour them. They outstretch their melting hands and claw towards her but their pleas for help fall on deaf ears as she just keeps on staring at the carnival of wreathing flesh before her, enthralled by the never-ending dance of the flames.

Flames colored into the deepest crimson, like a blossoming rose.

"Stop…"

Once again she tries to chase them away. But alas, they cannot. As trapped as she is in her own mind, they writhe and scream and beg for someone to help… but aside from her, there is none alive to answer. Only the crackling of the great fire remains- and as if having a voice of its own, its hisses and roars echo through the inferno as one victim after another falls prey to the flaming beast.

"I don't… want to die."

The age-old instincts inside of her finally come back to life. Like a cornered animal, she takes a small step back. And another. And another. Until she is running as fast as she can and her screams, her innate desires to live soar up towards the Heavens. And, as if answering her prayers, the skies open up and one after another merciful raindrops descend from the graying skies above.

But their shrieks remain…

The rain turns into embers, the raging inferno snapping at her heels finally catches up and as the fire devours her whole, their hands finally reach her and drag her into the loving embrace of death…

A painfully average-looking white ceiling was the only thing there to greet the girl when she opened her eyes. The covers had been kicked off in her flailing long ago and even in the confines of her own heated room, the teenager barely suppressed a shudder. Her pale fingers, with movements akin to those of a drunken spider, began their routine quest until they finally got hold of the pair of glasses left at her nightstand. The girl forced the fleeting nightmare into the back of her mind and with a wide and positively unlady-like yawn, stood up from her sweat-drenched bed.

The cloud-laden sky visible through the window promised heavy rain sometimes soon. Even though it was impossible to hear from the inside, the girl could easily guess that the wind, another sign of the reigning autumn, was howling viciously outside as well. The tree branches swayed around, as if chasing away particularly annoying hordes of flies, and dead leaves in every signature color of autumn's pallet fell off them after even the tiniest of motions. Most people would have classified the weather on that particular morning on the last day of October as 'one tiny step away from totally awful' but, as everybody who knew the girl would testify, Ayaka Millsbury loved nothing more than this kind of weather.

To Ayaka the heavy clouds looming from above meant 'salvation'- but there was not a soul in this world that actually knew why her only sincere smiles appeared when the rain poured heavily outside.

After changing out of her bedclothes into something warmer and more comfortable, Ayaka groggily grabbed the nearest brush and proceeded to tame the raging beast that was her morning hair. By the time she was done with her morning routine that peculiar autumn chill that somehow always manages to wiggle into the house despite all the tightly shut doors and windows had managed to jolt her awake.

There was no one to greet her for breakfast. Her parents had headed out to finish setting up their new house in Miami the day before, leaving the teenage girl all alone until the Christmas holidays. Of course, this situation was miraculously convenient to Ayaka, a convenience she had earned by convincing her parents to go on ahead and leave the house all to herself. And while to many this would sound as the beginning of the plot of a movie focusing on a teenage party so wild that it made the national news, alas, the bespectacled girl's goals were far different.

Through unverified rumors, private chats, hints and urban legends posted on forums and image boards a scant few had access to, Ayaka had learned of a certain… competition between mages that struck her interest like no piece of magi trivia ever before. Of course, she had reservations on even calling herself an amateur. Ever since finding out about her miraculous gift she had poured the majority of her free time in learning more of magic and sorcery. The beginning had been the most difficult part- information turned out to be the most important component and reliable info was almost impossible to find. But through tries and error and, however unbelievable it may sound, the help of the World Wide Web, the struggling mage had managed to gain enough knowledge to be able to actually do something with the power she possessed.

Of course, she had no way of knowing if the couple of bounded fields she had placed around her house actually worked but, no matter how disgusting, that ritual with the rabbit blood had worked and even the few times she had tried turning one material into another the results had seemed good enough. Ayaka's current most prized possession was a worn-out gritty grimoire she had managed to track to a dingy old neighbourhood antique shop. But the haul she was aiming for today was much, much bigger…

Or at least that was what a certain someone had promised.

'Subject: A special little something…

From: ShadowJuliet

You seem to be a lot interested in this whole 'War' thing. If you really are serious about it I suggest you pay a visit to Mr. Miyu's Emporium of Wondrous Mysteries in Chinatown. Browse the wares- if you are the real deal you should notice the special little something that you need to pick up. Bring it to me and I'll clue you in to all the details you need to know. I'll be waiting at 18:30 at the central fountain in Persephone's Grove Park every day until Halloween.

~~**~Lotsa kisses and love~**~~

ShadowJuliet 3'

Ayaka couldn't help but ask herself again whether she was doing the right thing as she gulped down the hot coffee and re-read the e-mail she had received barely a week ago. To weird and childishly cool usernames she had gotten used long ago on her Internet mage escapades. But somewhere deep inside, the whole magic thing seemed… unnatural to her. Not to mention how weird the message itself was. Even not taking into consideration that there was a 99% percent chance of the sender being a troll or a serial rapist hiding under the username of Juliet, what kind of legitimate mage… shop would have a name straight out of a B-rated Saturday night flick?

Still, ever since opening her eyes to whatever limited part of the world of mages she could perceive, Ayaka had quickly found out that despite being the one part of New York rivaling Manhattan in urbanization, Hartcroft seemed to hide much more when it came to magecraft than puny names and a larger-than-average share of urban legends. Of course, those ridiculous claims of New York's sixth burrow being artificially made by geomancer mages in alliance with other mage families fleeting from some kind of 'Association' in Europe during the 16th century were far-fetched at best.

However, this wasn't the matter with the shop with the funky name. Her research had proven it actually existed and after spending the last week blindly searching for other traces of ShadowJuliet over the secret mage places of the Internet, Ayaka had finally decided to give it a shot on the last day of the deadline.

If only he would be on time just this once…

"HEY AYAAAA!"

Barely twenty minutes late, he announced his arrival loud enough to wake up the dead. Ayaka closed the laptop with a sigh and after picking up her handbag, she headed towards the door before some of her neighbours started shooting at her less-than-quiet guest.

"You do know we have a bell, right?" she deadpanned instead of a normal greeting but the word might have just passed through her friend's ears. The gray-eyed teenager just beamed her a smile that could shame the Sun and dragged the helpless girl along before she could even react properly.

"You ready? Sure you are, you always are and this is gonna be seven different levels of awesome!" he declared to everyone within earshot- thankfully not too many people this early in the morning- and kept on running his mouth like always. "I've dreamed my whole life of visiting one of those shady shops that sell magic stuff! Maybe it's not even gonna be there next time we visit!"

"I doubt it," said Ayaka in a vain attempt to rein in the sanity of her accomplice. "As far as I know the shop has been there for a long time. But be more serious about it… please?" asked the black-haired girl quietly and bit her lower lip. Alas, subtlety and common sense were not Jed's strong points.

"Relax! There's nothing to worry about when you are with me. I almost beat an albino moose at wrestling once," proudly declared the boy with the dubious sanity and puffed his chest up.

Lunacy-grade talk aside, that in and of itself was an impressive feat. That autumn morning was particularly chilly and while Ayaka had armed herself with tights under her skirt and a jacket over her warm sweater, Jed had chosen to brave the elements with nothing but a plain yellow T-shirt and those green jeans of his that were covered full in stickers, emblems and patches. Only the ever-present lemon-colored beanie atop his unruly dark-blond hair hinted at him acknowledging the season. But then again, that particular hat was what had gathered all the shocked stares during the summer.

All in all, the only reason that Ayaka had asked him to help was because Jed was the only male… being she could turn to as a friend in a situation like this. The brown-eyed girl was well aware she was no social butterfly, by her own choice mostly, so how exactly Jed had decided to spend some of his ever-fleeting attention talking to the gloomy girl at school was a mystery for the ages. Maybe it was the fact that he claimed to be a mage as well. Or however he classified those claims to be able to jump dimensions Jed claimed to possess. While having some knowledge in magecraft that had been of quite some use to her, Ayaka had never actually seen him back up his claims. And, frankly, she found it hard to believe that while trying to determine how far he can slide, Jed had met a naked, glowing blue man. Who was a superhero to boot.

Indeed, at the end of the day Jed seemed like one of those guys you would put in a story only for the comic relief…

With its numerous facades colored in crimson and gold, ever-present decorations that made one think celebrating the New Year was just around the corner and dozens upon dozens of shops of various shapes and sizes, Hartcroft's Chinatown had certainly earned the moniker of Huangjin Zhen- the Golden City. From the ten-story pagoda in the center, decorated by statues of the Four Heavenly Beasts, to the other 'ordinary' decorations of dragons and tigers atop the rooftops, the little piece of the East entrenched in this side of the world made one wonder if he had stepped in a different country altogether. But Ayaka was too busy thinking about her little mission to admire the sights she had already seen so many times. The Chinatown neighbored Hillsdale and a visit from the suburbs to some nice restaurant here was practically a tradition for her family.

Now, a shop like this one, she had never ever visited before.

Ayaka could barely stop herself from squealing like a rabid fangirl at her favorite boy band's concert when she set foot in the dusty old shop. From the inside it seemed like any other seemingly 'extraordinary' antique shop that hadn't been cleaned in the last half a century or so. And the fact that 'in Chinatown' was officially part of its name according to the sign at the front spoke wonders of its owner's comprehension of the English language. But inside… inside were rammed, cluttered, spread and scattered dozens upon dozens upon dozens of books, pendants, scriptures, ritual knifes and God only knows what kinds of other contraptions that the girl just knew contained secrets of magecraft she could only dream to possesses. For the first time since getting hold of that dingy old grimoire that seemed so insignificant now did Ayaka feel an object to resonate that special energy she had inside her when she touched it.

'Awesome' and 'clusterfuck' were the two words on Ayaka's mind that best described the place in her opinion but, somewhat conscious of her appearance of a demure gloom, she chose to restrain her emotions. Unlike Jed, who charged into the shop like a rampaging rhinoceros and his shouts probably woke whatever part of Chinatown was still sleeping. And ruined that tiny little hope which she kept inside of her- of silently smuggling out the whole shop while the owner was still unawares. Alas, luck didn't seem to be on her side that day.

"Welcome, beauty young lady!" announced an old voice with a pronunciation so mangled that Shakespeare probably turned in his grave. "What can old Mr. Miyu offer you? Love magic you not need! A charm of very luck maybe, hm?" asked the white-haired man, who in his short stature, traditional clothing and fu-manchu mustache was so close to the stereotype of a wise old Chinese guy that he frightened Ayaka. That, or the fact that the old coot had somehow sneaked up on her without her even noticing.

"Uhm, no, thanks," declined the girl with a nervous smile. Propping her chin up with one hand and pushing back her glasses with the other, the black-haired girl pretended to look around as if in search of something in particular. "I'm just looking for a rare book," she flat-out lied in complete deadpan, mentally asking herself what the ones so sure of her Miss Goody-Two-Shoes façade would think of her now. "A collection of lycanthropy-related studies of the late medieval scholar… Lupus Volkski. Perhaps you have one in stock?"

Taking the bait faster than expected, the Chinese grandpa headed for the back room in a speed that would make men more than half his age green with envy. Finally free to look around, Ayaka let out the breath she had been holding and dove straight into one of the many aisles surrounded by mountains of magi-related paraphernalia . The shop certainly seemed bigger when one was actually inside it- for a moment the black-haired girl was afraid of getting lost and started to doubt that the fact so many real magecraft objects were gathered in one place was only because their owner was a mage, too…

"Whoa, there! Look out where you are going, love."

The thick English accent and the fact that she had just bumped into someone and had almost fallen jolted Ayaka back into the present. Someone was apparently still holding her, not more than half a meter away from the dusty floor, but since this certain someone was currently grabbing her breast as well and showing no signs of letting go, gratitude quickly turned into anger.

"Hey, would you-"

"Sorry, there, sorry!" cut her off the foreigner and Ayaka found herself put right back into a standing position before she could even properly raise her voice. The boy, no, the young man currently standing in front of her was smiling much like a rascal caught doing some mischief. The half-nervous smile was accompanied by scratching the back of his head and overall giving off an aura of helplessness.

Which was gone with frightening speed in the next moment when the stranger opened his eyes. The one not hidden under the fringe of his peculiar dark-blue hair was a deep blue that felt so… enthralling. Like a calm, all-engulfing ocean, the majestic sapphire orbs made Ayaka almost literally swoon. Her knees were on the verge of buckling and her heart had apparently decided to try tripling its beats. The features of the stranger seemed to sharpen, and even the air around him almost sparkled as strands of his just perfect hair billowed in the nonexistened breeze…

And then the fluttering of her heart was cut short as some instinct deep inside of her sent a jolt through her magic circuits and suddenly the stranger seemed normal again, his weird attire of almost aristocratic white shirt with manchetes and black leather pants excluded.

"Is that so?" mumbled almost incoherently the foreigner and after a disinterested shrug of his shoulders, adjusted the long light-blue scarf around his neck and headed out towards the exit, seemingly ready to brave the cold outside.

"HEY, AYAAA! LOOK WHAT I'VE FOUND!" came a thunderous shout from somewhere in the jungle of hidden treasures. The teen's voice was soon followed by the signature sound of a mountain of wares falling down.

True to his nature, Jed had demanded the girl's attention before she could even comprehend what had happened. After she regained her composure, Ayaka let out her umpteenth sigh for the day and obliged to follow her friend into the deeper parts of the shop.

"Maybe it's this one," gleefully suggested Jed and pointed towards an old yet shiny pocket watch stranded on one of the many littered shelves. It seemed like any other old watch someone's grandfather would keep as a remainder of the' good old times'. It looked somewhat… innocent even, with its delicate chain dangling from the shelf and reflecting the stray sun-beams that had somehow managed to enter this deep into the shop.

With piqued curiosity Ayaka ran a pale finger over the hourglass engraved onto the golden lid…

"Maybe it's this one," gleefully suggested Jed and pointed towards an old yet shiny pocket watch stranded on one of the many littered shelves.

Her knees suddenly buckled and, once again, the girl was saved from a close encounter with the dirty floor only by someone grabbing her falling body at the last second. Jed's questions fell on deaf ears as Ayaka heaved and fought for a precious gulp of air, feeling as if her insides had been scooped out and thrown away. The familiar sensation of electricity running through a magical grid was substituted by what the teenager guessed was the feeling of being electrocuted. The watch had certainly done something when she had touched it… and yet something inside of her told Ayaka that this wasn't the thing she was looking for.

"No, see I'm… fine, alright?" she protested as Jed pulled her up. "You go search that way, I'll check on the right. I want to find it quickly, okay?"

With a nod of acknowledgment Jed had quickly skipped off to the part of the shop assigned to him, leaving his friend to straighten her skirt, readjust her jacket and dive into the search again. A dreadful sense of desperation started to seep inside her mind after a while. The amateur 'mission', while certainly far from uneventful, had been pointless so far and Ayaka was beginning to be sure that she had been sent on a wild goose chase by some troll…

And then it caught her eye.

She would have missed it if not for the faint reflection of the glass case. Below it, among the variety of other assortment of magical artifacts, lay a seemingly aged but yet untouched brownish card. Ayaka's awestruck face was reflected clearly, but the black-haired girl's deep brown eyes were locked into the picture of the armored knight with the majestic decoration of red feathers on his helm, sword held proudly in his hands. Finally, the case was fogged as the girl let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding. And as crimson blood trickled from her arm out of a wound that hadn't been there minutes ago, Ayaka's faint whisper cut apart the silence.

"This is the one… Saber."

And the blood just kept on trickling down atop the glass, the stray sun-beams only enhancing its color even further- the deepest crimson, like a blossoming rose…

The young man pushed back the veil of sweaty raven-black hair which obscured the world from his eyes and, in turn, obscured his eyes from the unsuspecting world. But at the moment there was no one around, none that matter at least, and his work required precision, so he thought a bit of leeway could be forgiven. On the ground of the abandoned basement, a filthy rat-ridden hole with water dripping from the leaking pipes above- a setup one usually saw in cheap horror movies, was scribbled an intricate combination of interweaving circles and runes.

An outsider would have surely considered said geometrical and literary amalgamation satanic in origin. The distinct deep red color of the… ink used for its making surely wasn't meant to put anyone at ease either. Nor was the squirming, tightly roped body tossed in the nearest corner. And even under the dim light coming from the single bare light bulb hanging from the cracked ceiling, one could easily tell that the color of the ink matched perfectly with the pool of blood surrounding the captured man.

The kneeling one, easily recognized as Asian by his distinct facial features, flipped open the worn-out notebook in his left hand and muttered something to himself as he double-checked that the summoning circle in front of him matched the one in his prisoner's notes. Apparently satisfied with the result, the young man nodded to himself and stood up groggily. The sound of creaking bones could have been easily heard in the dirty basement as he stretched casually, his body stiff and tired after having to draw something so complex while kneeling on the ground for an hour and with only a single light bulb and a flashlight for illumination.

Still, the hardest part was yet to come. The captor approached the captive with a brisk step, the signature sound of pages being rapidly flipped over filling the air. And when it finally stopped and the young man showed the page he had flipped at to his unfortunate companion, a blood-chilling muffled shriek filled the cold underground air. The tied man struggled against his bindings in vain, ropes digging deeply into his flesh and shredding his skin. And yet he didn't give up and kept on flaying helplessly around. The horror inside his tear-filled eyes showed clearly how well he realized the fate that awaited him.

The Japanese man just let out an annoyed sigh as he prepared the needle, even letting his captive to try and crawl to the stairs before he jammed the sedative into his carotid artery. The struggling died out in seconds and soon the tied man was lying motionlessly on the filthy floor, his face even returning to an almost normal expression compared to the look of sheer horror from before. The young man dragged his sleeping prey to right below the light bulb and, setting down the notebook next to his first 'patient', jammed another needle in the veins running down his own arm. He was sure he could handle the pain and he had no desire to save his captive from any suffering. But this was going to be a rather delicate endeavor, not to mention he was somewhat winging it, so the man concluded that a clear brain and no distractions were a must.

Looking back, he was rather fortunate to have met that man at all. His captive had been of the adventures sort, even though he apparently fancied himself an archaeologist. The man had been more than ready to divulge information on the Grail War when Shinosuke had suggested they exchanged information. Of course, compared to the Japanese youth's measly understandings of the mystic ritual, the older man had acquired literally a small tome full of information. And when, drunk enough he had probably thought of Shinosuke as his foreign nephew or something similar, the archaeologist had blurted out he had a literal entry ticket into the War, his fate had been sealed. The youth hated to be forced to resort to trickery and it had truly been a relief when he was free to just render the man unconscious and drag him to his hideout. The place was pathetic and the stench made bile rise up in Shinosuke's throat and that was precisely why he had chosen the place- no one in their right mind would come down there willingly. Never before had Shinosuke been so glad to have studied English at school than while he had read through the notebook of the adventurous archaeologist. Not only information on past Wars but even the full details of the summoning ritual and nature of the Command Spells had been fully detailed in it. What's more, the older man seemed to had spent the last several months adapting some kind of an already existing system to split the seals between two people. One to lend prana to the Servant and one to have actual control over him. It was more than convenient for Shinosuke, given that unlike the archaeologist he was no mage at all. The prana inside his body would have surely been insufficient to keep his would-be Servant in this world, so using a proverbial 'battery' seemed to be the best course of action.

Still, the process of the seal transfer was bastardized, even though it was meant precisely for on-the-spot Spell relocation. And according to the notebook, after numerous experiments on test subjects- from rodents to homeless bums- an operation like that would leave the 'battery' brain-dead. Which was actually quite convenient for Shinosuke, since that meant he was going to be the only one actually able to use any Command Spells. The whole thing was something like poetic justice, at least according to him. That man had meant to perform the operation on some unsuspecting victim, so it was rather apt for him to turn out the one sacrificed in the end. Karma and all that.

The youth's hands worked deftly with the scalpel, carefully cutting out the area on his captive's wrist where the Spells were positioned. Slicing all the way to the bone, he carefully removed the chunk of flesh and separated the three Commands- one was left on his victim's body and the two others were meant for him. Shinosuke left the squishy piece of meat in the portable cooler prepared next to him and proceeded to carve away the flesh of his own arm. According to his source the original ritual was more spiritual than physical- and since neither the real nerves nor the 'magic circuits' would connect properly after such a botched operation, the recipient's arm was expected to wither away whole after a month or so as the necrosis spread. That was why the young man had chosen his left, non-dominant arm to bear the seals. Under the effect of the morphine overload he didn't feel a thing as he casually observed how blood slowly trickled down from the open wound on his hand and the lump of meat that was actually part of him dangled idly from it. Not long after, it fell on the dirty stone floor with a squishy splash. Shinosuke paid no mind to it for it was already useless to him. He didn't look fazed by the gaping hole on his left arm either- it wasn't the first time he saw his bones. Still, blood loss was his biggest enemy now and time was of enormous importance. Shinosuke fit the foreign piece of meat somewhat hastily in its designated place and proceeded to sew it in place.

The raven-haired man dug into his satchel, formerly the archaeologist's, and took out a tiny bottle filled with sloshing black liquid. Shinosuke removed the cap with his teeth and proceeded to spill its contents all over his newly-acquired two Command Spells. The black liquid looked like mud but it had none of the familiar cool sensation the youth was used to associate it with. Instead, it burned like red-hot lava, dripping under his skin and melting his flesh, foreign one interweaving with his own. Even after all the morphine, the pain was akin to someone slowly ripping his hand off whilst pouring salt on it all the while. The dilapidated walls of the basement started spinning around him and Shinosuke found himself forced to bite down on his tongue to keep himself conscious. As the black substance sank into his arm and the Command Spells were integrated into his body, the patch of flesh around them quickly turned gray and sickly, skin blistering and flesh starting to rot. Still, the whole thing was running rather smoothly so far. Shinosuke wiped the blood trickling down his chin and proceed with the next step of his plan. There was still the chance of the archaeologist, as a magus, to be able to retain his consciousness after some time. Given that there wasn't probably going to be any time for the raven-haired man to babysit his captive, he decided that a preemptive strike was going to be needed.

The age-old blade glistened gracefully even under the dim light of the bare bulb. The signature 'snikt' of a drawn blade echoed off the dilapidated walls of the basement as Shinosuke swiftly took out the inherited katana from its scabbard. The exotic sword felt as light as a feather in his hand- or rather it felt like a part of his hand, a far more familiar and welcomed extension of his body than the patch of foreign flesh fused with his left arm. After making sure that the tourniquets were in place, Shinosuke swiftly chopped off the man's limbs to their base with rapid, lightning-fast strikes. Only the mangled hand bearing the last Command Spell was left intact- the one thing binding Shinosuke and his would-be Servant to the now barely-human battery. He closed off the three flesh wounds with clay- he had no idea if cauterizing them with fire wouldn't damage his new 'partner' enough to kill him.

The living corpse was then dragged off to the far-off corner of the filthy basement. There was positioned another specially-prepared ritual circle, almost as elaborate as the one in the center. That one was meant to keep Shinosuke's new 'partner' alive for as long as it was needed. A dim yellowish glow emanated from the edges of the circle when the young man poured some of his own blood onto it, the spells recognizing the bond between the two and activating its life-sustaining effects.

And now it was time for the grand performance of the show.

The distant feeling of opening presents on Christmas morning filled Shinosuke as he took out a worn-out brownish card from his victim's satchel. As his eyes glazed over the picture of the frothing wolf-like beast depicted on it, his lips morphed into a smirk. How oddly fitting which class he was going to get. Perhaps Fate really did have some semblance of humor after all. With some of his blood smeared over the card, Shinosuke put it into the center of the summoning circle and took a step back.

" Ye first, O silver, O iron
O stone of the foundation, O Archduke of the Contract
Hear me in the name of our great teacher, the Archmagus Schweinorg"

His cold and emotionless voice filled the still air. Bright red light spread from the center of the circle, first from his own blood on the card, then all throughout the exotic runes and figures. Shinosuke suddenly felt a bit queasy, a sensation he was sure had nothing to do with his amateur attempts at playing surgeon. The pain in his left hand was back with a vengeance.

"Let the descending winds be as a wall
Let the gates in all directions be shut, rising above the crown, and let the three-forked roads to the Kingdom revolve.
Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut.
Five perfections for each repetition.
And now, let the filled sigils be annihilated in my stead!
Set. "

He was forced to stop when the sensation of his insides getting siphoned out washed all over him and threatened to knock him unconscious. Thankfully, the pressure that reminded him of getting electrocuted or getting the nerves inside his body burning out one by one settled down when a faint blue glow from the far-off corner started resonating with the beats of his own Command Spells. The prana-bond seemed to be working without problem.

"Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade.
If thou submittest to the call of the Holy Grail and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond.
I make my oath here.
I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heavens.
I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades.
Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words,
come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance-!"

By then the crimson glow had gotten blinding, illuminating every corner of the dilapidated basement. Even the air itself seemed uneasy and Shinosuke's neck-length hair billowed as if blown by a storm-like wind. Only a little bit was left- the special part required in the case someone had to summon that Servant.

"Yet, thou serves with thine eyes clouded in chaos.
Thou, bound in the cage of madness
I am he who command those chains."

A literal whirlwind seemed to explode from the center of the circle and the young man was forced to take several steps back because of the torrential wind. A small star seemed to erupt inside the old basement and Shinosuke was momentarily blinded, the world getting washed away in blinding white.

And then came a roar that would have turned the blood of even the greatest knight into stone right inside his veins. Whether it was a man-like beast or a beast-like man that stood before him, Shinosuke couldn't tell. He could only watch with revulsion the hideous giant. His right hand was oversized, as big as a tree-trunk in fact, disfigured and ended up with uneven clawed fingers. Maybe it was because of its weight and not actual animal instincts that the Servant was hunched over forward, the ridges of his spine clearly visible on his muscled back, sticking out almost like under-skin spikes. A tattered loincloth was the only thing that covered part of the beast and so one could easily see just how repulsive his body was. The waist was disappropriately thin, almost making it unbelievable how the Servant hadn't snapped in two so far. But his upper torso was more broad-shouldered than the most muscular man on Earth. The cheeks on his elongated face were sunken and shallow and patches of his long and dirty, probably once blond, hair looked ready to fall off at any given moment. Only the Servant's wild blue eyes, colored the icy tint of death itself, were filled with life and anger, darting around the room in search of his first prey in this world.

They finally settled on Shinosuke when the young man lifted up his left hand for the Servant to see the Command Spells. The two seals vaguely reminded him of something like a leathery wing and a snake- or dragon-like head next to it. Perhaps his 'partner' had the other wing? Probably.

As expected, the beast didn't seem fazed by the seals on his Master's arm in the least. Letting out yet another blood-chilling roar, he lunged forward in a mad fit of rage and pulled back his oversized right arm. Shinosuke pulled back his vision-obscuring fringe, his eyes meeting with those of his Servant.

The roar died in the beast's throat in the matter of a single second.

Like rooted to the ground, the Servant stopped in his track, hand still pulled back in preparation to turn Shinosuke into a bloody stain on the floor. And then the floor shook as the beast took a step forward. And another. And another. His hoarse animalistic gurgles filled the air and the Servant struggled onwards, only to meet more and more resistance as he neared his Master.

Shinosuke, on the other hand, was flabbergasted. He expected a legendary hero to have enough resistance to shrug off the initial effect, he was ready to accept the miracle that the thing before him was still of flesh and blood- but he had trouble accepting the fact that his Servant was still pushing forward, slowly but surely, dead-set on ripping him apart.

A wicked smile appeared on the raven-haired man's lips as he walked closely to his Servant. He tried to swing with his raised arm when Shinosuke walked into range but the traitorous arm refused to move, seemingly frozen in its place. Making sure to keep constant eye contact, the young man took a hold of a greasy patch of hair and pulled down the head of the beast so they could be face to face. The breath of his Servant, filled with the stench of death and rotten meat almost rendered Shinosuke unconscious. But still, he had some things to say if they were to work together.

"Listen, Berserker," said the young man and gazed inside the blue eyes of his Servant, eyes clouded with madness like no other. "I don't know who you are, nor do I care. All I can promise you is this: I will drown this city in blood if I have to, until I find the strongest opponent, the one strong enough for me to be satisfied. I promise to let this world be your playground, to let you slaughter to your heart's content, if you become my Servant and make me qualified as a Master to enter this War. And if in the end we are the last ones left standing, if all else fall before us, then I promise you this, too. One of us shall be the dead of the other. Until then, we cooperate. Understood?"

Seemingly without a care in this world, Shinosuke let go off his Servant's hair and averted his eyes away. Several seconds later, an animalistic roar and the sound of something crashing into the ground followed.

Berserker, eyes locked with the hidden ones of his Master, was kneeling.