Chapter 1, Part 4
ideal black
Rook and Bishop

[ [ March 14
[ [ 22:18

A rectangle of light hummed in a dark room, its vibration gently testing the rickety desk and knocking over an adjacent drinks can.
Paul Huangjing Tsz ignored it at first. The number was withheld, and anyone calling at this time of night was a maniac anyway. Continuing to hammer away at the SQL on screen, he simply waited for it to go to voicemail so he didn't have to deal with it anymore.
But he stopped himself. He couldn't really afford to let things go to voicemail right now. Not with his belt as tight as it already was. Maniac or no, he wasn't going to gain anything from leaving it hanging, so he reluctantly set the can upright and took the call.
"Huangjing speaking."
"Hey, Dad," came the reply. The voice was muffled by the shittiest audio quality he'd ever heard in his life, but even that wasn't enough to hide his daughter's voice from him.
"Sofie! How are you doing? You didn't call last week. What's wrong with your mic? Did your summoning go okay?"
"Chill out, Dad, one at a time," the voice at the other end chuckled. "Sorry about last week. I had some trouble getting my hands on a decent burner phone."
"It's the first time you'd missed a call in years. I was worried you'd already gone and gotten yourself killed."
"The fighting only started last night," Sofie replied. "My summoning went perfectly, by the way."
An unrestrainable grin spread across Paul's face. "That's my girl. You're confident?"
"Confident? This is the strongest thing I could have possibly pulled. I can't even lose at this point," she said. "I told you last time, didn't I? The catalyst was the most powerful sword in the world."
"I mean, anything could happen. Don't get too cocky or anything, alright? Just be careful," he pressed. "So you've got a good affinity with this summon?"
"Yeah, he's cool."
"He?" Paul echoed. "I thought this was an it."
"It was. Now it's a he," she said. "What, you got a problem with me hanging out with boys?"
"No, it's just… He's a supernatural being, you know? I just had some flashbacks to when I was your age," he replied. A repeat of his own past seemed unlikely, but he understood the allure of that side of the world as well as anyone.
"Relax. He's a ghost, from ancient times. All he cares about is fighting anyway. Nothing weird is gonna happen," she said. "We're gonna win, and then he's gonna… disappear, I guess? I don't really know how it works."
He frowned. "That sounds like something you ought to find out sooner rather than later."
"Yeah, I'll talk to him about it, I guess. Speaking of which, I really owe you one for the hotel room. You sure you can afford this?" she asked.
"That's what savings are for, sweetheart," he replied. "Don't you worry about it. You haven't had any trouble with speaking or reading Japanese, have you?"
"Dad, you know better than anyone that my Magecraft is about information and communication," she said. "I could speak Ancient Egyptian if I had to."
Paul chuckled. The girl really took after her mother. Converting the Codecasts of Spiritron Hacking into universal linguistic translation was light years ahead of anything he would have even considered possible, but here she was dismissing it so casually as though it were elementary.
"You're doing well for yourself," he said. "At this rate, it won't even take two weeks."
"I'll come visit on the way home when I'm done here," Sofie promised. "Yuan Ma probably won't notice if I take a little detour."
"Try not to draw too much attention to yourself while you do then," Paul said.
Yuan Ma didn't seem like a bad guy though, as much as he probably wasn't in a position to so easily admit it. He wouldn't have been surprised if the man relented and just let Sofie do whatever she wanted on the way home. After all, he had let her go to Japan in the first place.

The line was quiet for a moment, and then Sofie spoke again.
"Anyway, I just wanted to update you," she said. "I probably ought to get back to checking my prep. You know, so I don't die."
"Don't worry about it, honey. I'm just happy you called," came her father's tinny response. "Just let me know you're still alive every so often, alright? Even if you're basically as good as safe, I still worry."
"I will, relax," she said. "Love you, Dad."
"Love you. Do well."
"I will."
Not sparing herself an extra second to hesitate, Sofie hung up as fast as she could, and clutched the phone tightly.
It hadn't been a lie. She would've had to be up against some truly ridiculous opponents to have been outclassed, whether on the side of Magecraft or the ability of the Servant. She had summoned the most perfect Heroic Spirit in the most perfect class for this fight. On top of that, she knew that she could use her Magecraft to one of the fullest extents of her generation, and probably even the previous few as well. It wasn't mere arrogance that led her to say that. It was simply the unqualified truth that had led her life in this direction to begin with.
I am the strongest, or else my name is not Sofie Huangjing Le-Mei.
For her, there was very little rhetoric behind such a cliché. And yet…
"What could you possibly still be anxious about?"
The figure of a man shimmered into being, leaning against the wall opposite her bed. His clothing was clearly not of this era, a white hakama and a brown cloak over his shoulders. What little armour he had on seemed almost crude with how heavy it was, and his hands were tightly wrapped. Bleach-white hair framed a ruby gaze with serpentine eyes, and it felt like she was being sized up by a predator.
No, it didn't just feel like that. If this man ever felt for even a second just slightly displeased, he could have instantly torn her to pieces as easily as a tissue.
But they both knew he wasn't going to.
She sighed. "Just wondering whether you'd up and left, Saber."
"Ha. Maybe if I did, you'd find yourself a little less up your own ass, Master." The term was filled with such derision that it almost burned. "You get along with your dad, huh? I don't think I'd ever seen you so sweet to anyone."
"And I got the impression just from reading about you that you didn't."
"Don't. I don't wanna hear about whatever bullshit they put to page about my life," he shot back, clicking his tongue. "The fact that it's apparently positive makes me sick enough on its own. Where the hell was all that praise when I was going round killing their enemies for them, huh?"
"Well, don't get too worked up about it," she replied. "It worked out for you in the end."
"Suppose so. So you got a battle plan, or do you need me to come up with that for you too?"
Sofie shrugged, throwing herself back onto the mattress. She hadn't slept in a bed like this for years before arriving here, and she had been struggling to sleep on it for the past few nights as a result, but it was getting a little easier day by day.
"What's there to even plan?" she replied. "Your M.O. is as straightforward as it gets, right? Walk in, beat the crap out of everyone, walk out. You're an honest guy. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than just let you loose as you please. Worked out for you last time, right?"
"You're seriously making my life out to be way too easy," he shot back. "But I guess you're right that I'm pretty much unstoppable with my sword. This'll be over quick, as long as they don't have any gods for me to fight."
"Don't get cocky," she reprimanded. "You're just a Servant now. Even if these are your ideal conditions, you're still weaker than you were in life."
Saber scoffed, grinning. "Please. Just because I'm a little weaker, that doesn't make the peanut gallery any stronger."
"That's not what that means. 'Peanut gallery' are the spectators."
"It's absolutely what it means. They're gonna spectate me tearing them a new asshole."
Sofie rolled her eyes, sitting back up. "Okay. Here's the deal. Servants increase in strength according to their fame, right? And fame is relative to where they're summoned. So you're definitely at your peak here in Japan. But that doesn't just apply to you. We're going to be seeing a lot of Japanese Servants in the Holy Grail War because of that."
He shrugged. "I already know all that. It's no reason to be worried though. I'm this nation's strongest hero, hands down. No matter how strong they get, I'm stronger."
"No, that's not the point," she said. "The point is that strength isn't what you should be worried about, right? Just because you're at the top of all Japan's Heroic Spirits, that only means you're the strongest hero that was ever produced by its historical or mythological systems, which gain a flat bonus on this field."
Saber frowned. "Where are you going with this?"
"I'm saying that other systems exist, and they have different basic assumptions. Assumptions that things native to Japan, and more specifically you, might have difficulty dealing with," she replied. "What we need to be careful with isn't just power alone. You might have enough raw strength to break their rules, sure, sometimes. But you can't take that for granted, understand? That's why I'm here."
He quite suddenly narrowed his eyes. "No, you're not fighting with me."
"I am. You can't do anything about it." She raised her left hand, brandishing a hexagonal red mark in three parts on the back.
"Sofie, I'll say it right now before you do something so fucking stupid that you die," he said. "You physically cannot win this argument with that thing."
"What, you think 'let me support you with my Magecraft in battle' is too vague for the Command Spell?" she said dryly. "I'm not so much of a pushove─"
"Forget it. I'm stronger than all three of your so-called 'absolute commands' combined and then some," he said. "Come back when you've filled up the other hand too, and maybe you could compel me a single time."
But I'll definitely kill you afterwards.
The final stipulation went unspoken, hanging in the air like a toxic miasma.
"Jesus. I knew you were a big shot, but you really are nuts," Sofie sighed, lowering her hand. "Fine. But all I want is for you to let me help so you don't end up cornered by something you can't deal with."
His glare did not fade, but his expression softened. "I won't. We don't have enough information to come up with specific counterplay right now in the first place, do we?"
"You mean you think taking everyone head-on is the only strategy?"
"More like being able to come up with plans on the fly is the prerogative of the strongest," he replied. "Mistakes are costly. Being unprepared is a luxury. And I'm the one who can afford to pay that piper's highest rates. Understand?"
They knew nothing about their enemies - nothing worth knowing, anyway. But likewise, their opponents in this battle knew very little about them either. With everyone equally prone to error, it was only natural that Saber would come out on top, so he claimed, because he could endure the consequences of a blunder far more easily than their foes.
"I suppose, so long as we're on a fair playing field," Sofie conceded.
"Well, if push comes to shove," he grinned, "I'll just help myself to those top-class Magic Circuits of yours and crush them into an exotic new onigiri filling."
She scoffed. "Wow. Remind me never to underestimate the bloodthirst of a poet again."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. I guess I'll just go to bed if you're so adamantly against making any kind of preparations, then."
"Do whatever you want. It's not like you didn't already finish making that trump card you were working on, right?" he said.
"Finish? Not even close. Ask me again in a century and I'll give you an update."
Her retort sounded like sarcasm, but there was no hint of hyperbole in her voice. That thing he had called a trump card was something that would take generations. Such a thing would ordinarily be no issue for a Magus, who passed down their knowledge to the next generation, but for Sofie, it was a different story. Her unique interpretation of the Magecraft she used through her Philosophy Key was geared towards consumption civilisation rather than ancient tradition. Ideal though it was for the world in which she lived, passing it down was going to be difficult at best.
On top of that, Philosophy Keys were different to the Magic Crests of the western world. If she was passing on anything, it was only the Key itself to her own future student, not her works or her interpretations. If she could have simply relied on the next generation to do what she couldn't, she would not have needed to consult this Holy Grail in the first place. No, even if she could, the world's Mystery declined further every day. If she didn't do this, perhaps nobody ever would, even if they wanted to.
If she didn't complete the impossible task of merging the eastern and western Magecraft traditions, then it was completely possible that they would only diverge further and further until they ceased to be able to exist in a world of global mass communication.
To put it simply, the past would be lost to the future.
Not all forward marches progressed. If human civilisation as it existed now really was unsustainable, then it would have to change, and rolling back the destructive forces brought about by modern civilisation could well have benefited from looking to the past for inspiration.
Sofie didn't particularly have much opinion one way or another on her ancestors and their traditions, but she was not of the opinion that all things discarded were worthless. To preserve old things was important, as the future might have one day needed them again.
Magecraft was no exception. No, Magecraft required the past: it was the discipline that was the least exceptional in this regard.
And so, it was like she had resolved to climb a mountain with her bare hands, but…
"I did manage to turn it on the other day though."
…her creation worked, as rudimentary as it was. The principles were sound. It was all the encouragement she needed to fight, and to make a wish.
Saber's expression didn't change.
"Then I'm on the right side for once," was all he said.

On the hill to the east of the river, there was a church.
It had been there for generations. There was not a living soul in the town who did not remember its presence, standing remote and alone atop the hill.
Below its altar, a basement contained a shrine. It was a humble room, lacking in extravagant decor or architecture, and usually remained bathed in pure darkness. It had indeed spent the last few decades that way.
But for the past few nights, it had been gilded with bright light, so brilliant that it almost looked like a palace. To the girl on her knees before it, she could not perceive it as anything less than a wondrous throne.
"Hail to Heaven and to God Almighty of Spirits and Flesh, to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit."
The Fuyuki Church had one priest to watch over the town below. Priests entered and left over the years, but there was only ever one - no more, no less. There was no ironclad rule declaring so, but neither was there any incentive to change that number.
"Hail to the angels and to the saints and to the Holy Mother, the feathers in Your wings."
Fuyuki City could not be left alone, especially now. Likewise, it did not necessitate any more than a single pair of eyes, even now.
"Glory to the Lord, and the Lord alone. Praise be upon the holy fathers and upon the great teachers."
And so, the task fell to a certain priestess who had exhibited exemplary performance. She had, true to form, kneeled at the shrine and uttered praises every night for no less than an hour, and often more, for the past two months.
"I, the unworthy, am nourished by grace, light, and mercy."
She did not pray for herself. She did not have a wish of her own to be granted.
"Peace be upon all the living and upon all the dead. May all be good. May all be well. May peace be on Earth as it is in Heaven."
And so, she prayed for others. Every night, she held in her heart all the strife and suffering of which she knew, and willed for it to end.
"Peace be upon the vicious as it is upon the virtuous. May they be saved. May they find solace."
Spoken with no hesitation nor apprehension, not to declare herself good or righteous, she pleaded from the bottom of her heart with such purity it felt almost desolate to witness.
"May peace be upon the Devil. May Your light reach the depths of Hell. May it save the damned who rejected You. May the lake of fire someday finish its work and be extinguished. May we all be reunited in Your love without exception."
There was nothing she desired for the present but to do her duties, and to lead those who came to her to the happiest lives she could. This was her responsibility. She dedicated the organ that wished to the future, and prayed for the fate of all creation.
"May You smile upon all Your Creation, and may it shine like the Moon with your light. Amen."
With her plea complete, she stood up. The seven Masters who had been called were all here now, but she did not pray for the Holy Grail. The red skirt of her habit rolled to her ankles, and she turned toward the door. She had said all she wanted to.
She would do as she was required of her. To that end, so long as she did His will, she had absolute faith that God would support her.
Refreshed, contented, and brimming with hope, a smile came to Kyriake Luxestiva's lips as she departed from the shrine to get ready for bed.
She had to be up early tomorrow. She had a guest to entertain, after all.